I, severely.

"But I'm not paying in parables, parson. I'm paying in _me_," said he,
grimly. And he laughed again, a laugh of sheer stark misery that
raised a chill echo in my heart. His hand crept back to my sleeve.

"I--can't always can the squeal," he whispered.

"If only I could help you!" I grieved.

"You do," said he, quickly. "You do, by being you. I hang on to you,
parson. And say, look here! Don't you think I'm such a hog I can't
find time to be glad other folks are happy even if I'm not. If there's
one thing that could make me feel any sort of way good, it's to know
those two who were made for each other have found it out. It sort of
makes it look as if some things do come right, even if others are
rotten wrong. I'm glad till it hurts me. I'd like you to believe
that."

"I do believe it. And, my son! if you can find time to be glad of
others' happiness, without envy, why, you're bound to come right,
because you're sound at the core."

"You reckon I'm worth my price, then, parson?"

"I reckon you're worth your price, whatever it is. I don't worry about
you, John Flint."

And somehow, I did not. I left him with Kerry's head on his knee. His
hand was humanly warm again, and the voice in which he told me
goodnight was bravely steady. He sat erect in his doorway, fronting
the night like a soldier on guard. If he were buying his soul on the
instalment plan I was sure he would be able to meet the payments,
whatever they were, as they fell due.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WISHING CURL

With February the cold that the Butterfly Man had wished for came with
a vengeance. The sky lost its bright blue friendliness and changed
into a menacing gray, the gray of stormy water. Overnight the flowers
vanished, leaving our gardens stripped and bare, and our birds that
had been so gay were now but sorry shivering balls of ruffled
feathers, with no song left in them. When rain came the water froze in
the wagon-ruts, and ice-covered puddles made street-corners dangerous.

This intense cold, damp, heavy, penetrating, coming upon the heels of
the unseasonably warm weather, seemed to bring to a head all the
latent sickness smoldering in the mill-parish, for it suddenly burst
forth like a conflagration. If the Civic League had not already done
so much to better conditions in the poorer district, we must have had
a very serious epidemic, as Dr. Westmoreland bluntly told the Town
Council.

As it was, things were pretty ba