week I knew I'd got what was missin' in my life.

"I never married and children never meant much to me till I got her.
She's the best little--little . . . There! I mustn't talk this way. I
bluffed a lot about not keepin' her permanent, bein' kind of ashamed,
I guess, but down inside me I'd made up my mind to bring her up like
a daughter. She and me was to live together till she grew up and got
married and I . . . Well, what's the use? A few days ago come a letter
from the Oliver woman in Concord sayin' that this Henry Thomas, Bos'n's
father, wan't dead at all, but had turned up there, havin' learned
somehow or 'nother that his wife was gone and that his child had been
willed a little bit of land which belonged to her mother. He had found
out that Emmie was with me, and the letter said he would likely come
after her--and the land.

"That letter was like a flash of lightnin' to me. I was dismasted and
on my beam ends. I didn't know what to do. I'd learned enough about this
Henry Thomas to know that he was no use, a drunken, good-for-nothin'
scamp who had cruelized his wife and then run off and left her and the
baby. But when he come, the very night I got the letter, I gave him a
chance. I took him in; I was willin' to give him a job on the place;
I was willin' to pay for his keep, and more. I DID ask him to keep his
mouth shut and even to use another name. 'Twas weak of me, maybe, but
you want to remember this had come on me sudden. And last night--the
very second night, mind you--he went out somewhere, perhaps we can guess
where, bought liquor with the money I gave him, got drunk, and then
insulted one of the best women in this town. Yes, sir! I say it right
here, one of the best, pluckiest little women anywhere, although she and
I ain't always agreed on certain matters. I DID tell him to clear out,
and I DID knock him down. Yes, and by the big dipper, I'd do it again
under the same circumstances!

"As for the property," he added fiercely, "why, darn the property, I
say! It ain't wuth much, anyhow, and, if 'twas anybody's else, he should
have it and welcome. But it's Bos'n's, and, bein' what he is, he SHAN'T
have it. And he shan't have HER to cruelize, neither! By the Almighty!
he shan't, so long as I've got a dollar to fight him with. I say that to
you, Tad Simpson, and to the man--to whoever put you up to this. There!
I've said my say. Now, gentlemen, you can choose your side."

He strode back to his seat. There wa