when that dog we stole
last summer got sick, there was nobody in town could do anythin' for
him except that old lame nigger down in the holler."

"Well, you're a sweet one, ain't you?" said Tom. "What's dogs got to do
with religion, I'd like to know? You ought to be ashamed o' yourself,
even if you ain't never been to church."

"Well," said Billy, "what I was meanin' is, some folks seem to know a
good deal about things without bein' learned, that other folks will
give their whole time to, an' don't know very much about. Every place
that I go to, somebody says somethin' to me about dad an' religion.
Say, Tom, do you know dad's mighty different to what he used to be
before he got took up?"

"Of course I do. He's always wantin' folks to work, an' always findin'
fault with everythin' we do that ain't right. He didn't use to pay no
attention to nothin'; we could do anythin' we wanted to; and here I am,
a good deal bigger, an' just about as good as a man, an' he pays more
attention to me than he ever did, an' fusses at me as if I was little
bit of a kid. An' I don't like it, either."

"Well, as he said to me t'other day, Tom, he's got to be pretty lively
to make up for lost time."

"Well, I wish, then," said Tom, meditatively, "that he hadn't never
lost no time, 'cause it's takin' all the spirit out o' me to be
hammered at all the time in the way he's a-doin'. I just tell you what
it is, Billy," said Tom, stopping short and smiting the palm of one
hand with the fist of the other, "I've half a mind, off and on, to go
to steady work of some kind, an' I'll be darned if I don't do it, if
dad don't let me alone."

"Mis' Prency was talkin' to me the other day about dad," said Billy,
"an' she asked me whether he wasn't workin' awful hard at home after he
left the shop, an' I said, 'Yes,' an' she said, 'I hope you all do all
you can to help him?' an' I kind o' felt ashamed, an' all I could say
was that I didn't see nothin' I could help him about, an' she said she
guessed if I'd think a little while I could find out. Say, Tom, let's
go to work a-thinkin', an' see if there ain't some way to give dad a
lift. Seems to me he's doin' everythin' for us all the whole time, an'
we ain't doin' nothin' at all for him."

"Oh, now, quit your preachin'," said the elder brother, contemptuously.
"If you don't, I'll lamm you."

The younger brother prudently lapsed into entire silence, and the
couple soon reached home. Tom strolled about the