ld; "Joe's run away, 'cause
the constable was after him for stealin' meat from--"

"My boy a thief! Oh, Lord!"

"Well, we didn't have nothin' to eat; he had to do it."

The father dropped his head and shuddered. The child continued:
"Billy's goin' to school now; Jane's servant-gal at the hotel; Tom
plays hookey all the time, an' the baby squalls so much that nobody
likes her but Billy."

The man looked sad, then thoughtful; finally he put his arm around his
child, and said, as he kissed and caressed her,--

"You're to have a better dad after this, darlin'; then maybe the
mother'll feel pleasanter, an' the baby'll be happier, an' Tom'll be a
good boy, an' we'll get Joe back somehow."

"How's you goin' to be better?" asked the child.

"Goin' to give us money to buy candy an' go to all the circuses?"

"Maybe," said the father. "I must go see the mother now."

The child followed her father to the house; there was not much
excitement in the life of the Kimper family, except when there was a
quarrel, and Mary seemed to anticipate some now, for she drawled, as
she walked along,--

"Mam's got it in for you; I heerd her say so many a time sence you war
took away."

"The poor thing's had reason enough to say it, the Lord knows," said
the man. "An'," he continued, after a moment, "I guess I've learned to
take whatever I'm deservin' of."

As Sam entered his house, a shabbily dressed, unkempt, forlorn looking
woman sat at a bare pine table, handling some dirty cards. When she
looked up, startled by the heavy tread upon the floor, she exclaimed,--

"I declare! I didn't expect you till--"

"Wife!" shouted Sam, snatching the woman into his arms and covering her
face with kisses. "Wife," he murmured, bursting into tears and pressing
the unsightly head to his breast,--"wife, wife, wife, I'm goin' to make
you proud of bein' my wife, now that I'm a man once more."

The woman did not return any of the caresses that had been showered
upon her; neither did she repel them. Finally she said,--

"You _do_ appear to think somethin' of me, Sam."

"Think somethin' of you? I always did, Nan, though I didn't show it
like I ought. I've had lots of time to think since then, though, an'
I've had somethin' else, too, that I want to tell you about. Things is
goin' to be different, the Lord willin', Nan, dear--wife."

Mrs. Kimper was human; she was a woman, and she finally rose to the
occasion to the extent of kissing her husband, tho