Hain't he got any feelin' for his own flesh and blood?" he asked
himself. "'T ain't right; somebody'd ought to deal with him."

As he pottered about his yard after dinner, he finally worked
himself up to the point of speaking to Edwards himself.

Even his righteous indignation would not have led him to this
undertaking had he known Mr. Edwards better, or realized the
father's present mood. Hurt exceedingly by Jim's lying and contempt
of his wishes, hurt even more through his disappointed desire to
help his boy, Mr. Edwards was sore and sensitive, discontented both
with Jim and with himself. He did not want Jim in jail, he told
himself; and the neighbors who were so uniformly assuming that he
did might better give their thoughts to matters that concerned them
more. He would get the boy out of jail quick enough if the boy would
only let him.

As he stepped out of the house to do an errand at the barn, Mr.
Peaslee hailed him over the dividing fence. Somewhat put out, Mr.
Edwards nevertheless turned and walked toward his neighbor. Mr.
Peaslee, leaning over the fence, began.

"Ed'ards," he said, reaching out an anxious, deprecatory hand,
"don't ye think you're jest a leetle mite hard on that boy o'
yourn--"

He got no further. Edwards gave him a look that made him shiver, and
cut the conversation short by turning on his heel and marching
toward the barn.

"Dretful ha'sh man, dretful ha'sh!" Mr. Peaslee muttered to himself.
"Nice, likely boy as ever was. If I had a boy like that, I swan I
wouldn't treat him so con-sarned mean!"

He turned away much shocked, and saw the Calico Cat watching him
ironically from the chicken-house. "Drat that cat!" said he. "I
ain't goin' to stay round here--not with that beast grinning at me."

He got his hat and started up-town, not knowing in the least what he
intended to do there. He stopped, however, at every shop window and
studied baseballs, bats, tivoli-boards, accordions. He was beginning
to wonder if a twenty-five-cent knife was enough to console Jim for
his unmerited incarceration.

He was gazing forlornly in at the window of Upham's drugstore, where
some half-dozen harmonicas were displayed, and wondering if Jim
would be allowed to play one in his dungeon cell, when Hibbard
spoke to him.

He drew the lawyer aside, and, peering closely into his face with
anxious eyes exaggerated by his spectacles, said insinuatingly:--

"Jest 'twixt you and me kinder confidential, Pete ai