edged goodness myself nor in any way at
all virtuous. I'm terrible easy-going myself and I know just how kids
like Charlie Pinley feel working for a man, a careful, exact man like
Mr. James D. Austin. By gosh! if I had to work a whole week for Mr.
Austin I'd kill myself. Never could stand too much neatness and
worrying about time being money and human nature too full of meanness.
No, sir,--I can't live like that. I guess maybe it's because I'm kind
of no-account myself that I understand these kids and they understand
me. They all like horses same as me and I pay them all I can afford
and will do more for them when things pick up and grow.

"Now there's people as laugh about me hiring Hank Lolly. I guess it's
the first time Hank has ever held a job longer than a week. But I tell
you, Grandma, I like Hank and I understand him. And I don't ever think
I'm fit enough myself to be forever preaching at him about reforming.
I figure that what a man eats and drinks is none of my business in a
way. But I did explain to Hank that if he would come and work for me
I'd furnish him with so many drinks every day and meals and a
comfortable place to sleep. I showed him that it was better to be sure
of a few drinks every day than to get blind drunk on a week's wages and
then go weeks maybe without a decent spree, without decent meals, maybe
without underwear and an overcoat. And Hank saw the sense of that. He
gets his meals up at the house. My old woman (Billy's wife was a
pretty girl of twenty-three and still a bride) sides in with what I'm
doing and she sets Hank down every day to three square meals. And a
man just can't hold so much liquor on a comfortably filled stomach.
Anyhow, Hank is doing fine and I'm putting a few dollars in the bank
unbeknownst for him. I can't trust him just yet with any noticeable
amount of cash. But I'm never down on him for his drinking. No, sir!
Every time he feels that he must get drunk or die why he just comes up
and tells me and I get him whatever he thinks he needs for his jag and
let him get full right here where I can watch him. Why--Grandma, Hank
has an easier life than I have. He doesn't need to worry about
anything and he knows it. And I'll be goshed if I don't think he's
improving. He don't need a jag near so often as he used to and I can
trust him now with any kind of work. Why, only last week I gave him a
moving job, a big one, and sent him off twenty miles with my two best