"Have you entirely finished?" says he, when the sound of my words hit my ears with such a lonesome feeling that I quit talking.
"Yes, sir," I says, "that's about all of it."
"Well, William, I see you're determined to make our name a disgrace through the community," he begins again. That was out of whooping range from the truth. I hadn't determined to do anything to our name, nor nothing else, when I got aboard that engine. Far from me had it been to determine anything, so I filed a protest.
"Why, father," I says, "it was an accident—it was just as if you'd hopped into a neighbor's wagon, not noticing the head-stall wasn't on the horse, and the critter'd run away, and things—" Here again I run down with a buzz. He wasn't paying the least heed to the sense of what I said. It only interrupted him. He sailed right on, explaining how I was the most undiluted scoundrel of his acquaintance, an all-wool villain of the closest weave, built to hold sin like a Navajo blanket does water.
Now I understand that the old gentleman did think a lot of me, and, of course, wanted me to be as near like him as possible, as representing the highest style of man—it was his disappointment he poured on me, not his judgment. But then, I was sixteen by the clock, and I thought, of all the fool laying-outs I'd heard, that crossed the rope an easy first.
I wanted to respect my father; you can't guess how much I wanted to, but when he insisted on talking like Eli Perkins's mule, it simply wasn't possible. He stood there, black and sullen, and I stood there, red and sullen.
"Get yourself ready to go with me," he says, turns on his heel, and walks to the house, his hands clasped behind his back, and his big head leant forrard,—a fine, powerful chunk of a man, all right. Oh, Lord! What he could have been if he'd listened to mother instead of Anker! There wasn't a man in this county more respected, nor whose word was better thought of on any subject outside of his own family, and that hydrophobia of a doctrine of his. Honest? Why, he was the savings-bank of the place. All the old hayseeds around there turned their surplus in to him to take care of, instead of putting it in a sock,—and I want you to understand that the real old Yankee farmer, with tobacco juice on his whiskers, was a man you'd fool just once in a lifetime, and you'd sit up more'n one night to figure how you got the best of it, then.
Well, down him and me goes to the railroad office, and I have to tell my tale. I begged hard to be allowed to leave Jerry out of it, but no—that wouldn't do: it would be a lie. I always stood ready to lie to any extent to help a friend. I think that hurt me worse than the rest of it.
After some parleying around the offices, we were shown up into a private room. There sat three men, officers of the company, and Jerry.
My father made few words of his part, simply saying he stood prepared to pay all damages, although he could ill afford it, and that I would tell the story.