“Get up there, you old fool!” Look roared. “I’ve about concluded that the two of you need guardians or—or keepers.” He stood before Micajah with his arms akimbo. “Eleven thousand at interest and twenty-five hundred on first mortgages!” he sneered. “And while you’ve been pawing that out of the muck, you and your wife, you have never stood up straight, taken full, free breath of air and God’s sunshine and looked into each other’s eyes like true man and wife. And she doesn’t know you and you don’t know her, and you don’t know your own selves. Oh, ’Caje Dunham, I’m ashamed of you!”
The man stared at him stupidly.
“You don’t know yet what I mean, do you?” the lawyer went on. “You’re waiting for me, an old bach, to explain to you your mistakes and point out your duty.”
A youngster came slapping his bare feet along the shed walk.
“Squire Look,” he called, “Mis’ Dunham is over to my marm’s, and she just see you come in here, and sent word if you got any business with her you can call over there.” He added, triumphantly, “She’s brung her clothes to our house, too, and she’s goin’ to be our boarder.” He had edged into the bedroom, and his round eyes, big with the half-knowledge and guesses of childhood, goggled at the woe-stricken husband.
The lawyer meditatively stroked his nose a moment and then turning without a word walked out of the house. The boy pattered on ahead. Dunham picked up the writ and followed dejectedly.
“Be you goin’ to stay to the big meetin’ to-night, Squire Look?” inquired the boy, bursting with his fresh knowledge. “Mis’ Dunham and my marm and my pa and Mister Bolster are goin’ to have all the people meet at the school house and discharge teacher.” He turned his urchin’s stare of inquisitive significance on Dunham, stubbing along behind in the highway. “Mis’ Dunham come into school this afternoon and told teacher, and teacher didn’t go home after school, but I peeked in the winder, and she’s there cryin’ and——”
“Bub,” said the Squire severely, “you’re anxious to grow up to be a nice big man, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
“Well, there’s nothing that stunts growth like using your tongue too much. That’s why so many women are shorter and slimmer than men. Now always remember that all your life, and some day when you’ve grown up good and tall you just tell your little boys that a nice old lawyer gave you that advice about your tongue and never charged you a cent for it.”