k up for
stealin' Mrs. Elkanah Higgins's spoons,' I says. 'He had a healthy crop
of apples in HIS orchard.'

"'S-sh-h! DON'T talk so! I feel as if the old man's spirit was with
us this minute. "He's the apple of my eye," he says, "and he run away,
after me latherin' the life out of him with a wagon spoke. 'Twas all
for his good, but he didn't understand, bein' but a child. And now I've
heard," he says, "that he's workin' at 116 East Blank Street in the city
of New York. Cap'n Wixon, you're a man of money and a travelin' man," he
says (I was fishin' in them days). "When you go to New York," he says,
"I want you to promise me to go to the address on this paper and hunt
up Jimmie. Tell him I forgive him for lickin' him," he says, "and die
happy. Will you promise me that, Cap'n, on your word as a gentleman?"
And I promised him. And he died in less than ten months afterwards, poor
thing.'

"'But that was sixteen--eighteen--nineteen years ago,' says I. 'And the
boy run away three years afore that. You've been to New York in the past
nineteen years, once anyhow.'

"'I know it. But I forgot. I'm ashamed of it, but I forgot. And when
I was goin' through the things up attic at my daughter's last Friday,
seein' what I could find for the rummage sale at the church, I come
across my old writin' desk, and in it was this very piece of paper with
the address on it just as I wrote it down. And me startin' for New York
in three days! Barzilla, I swan to man, I believe something SENT me to
that attic.'

"I knew what sent him there and so did the church folks, judgin' by
their remarks when the contribution came in. But I was too much set back
by the whole crazy business to say anything about that.

"'Look here, Jonadab Wixon,' I sings out, 'do you mean to tell me that
we've got to put in the whole forenoon ransackin' New York to find a boy
that run off twenty-two years ago?'

"'It won't take the forenoon,' he says. 'I've got the number, ain't I?'

"'Yes, you've got the number where he WAS. If you want to know where I
think he's likely to be now, I'd try the jail.'

"But he said I was unfeelin' and disobligin' and lots more, so, to cut
the argument short, I agreed to go. And off we put to hunt up 116
East Blank Street. And when we located it, after a good hour of askin'
questions, and payin' car fares and wearin' out shoe leather, 'twas a
Chinese laundry.

"'Well,' I says, sarcastic, 'here we be. Which one of the heathen do you