"She was kind of offish at first, but thinkin' of her goin' without tea made me kind o' leaky about the eyes, an' that broke her down, an' she told me, 'fore she knowed what she was doin', about the awful hard time she an' her young ones had had, though before that nobody'd ever knowed her to give a single grunt, for she was as independent as she was poor. After that I often gave her a lift, in one way or other. She kicked awful hard at first; but I reminded her that the Bible said that part o' true religion was to visit the fatherless an' widders in their 'fliction, so she oughtn't to put stumblin'-blocks in the way of a man who was tryin' to live right; an' as I didn't have no time for makin' visits myself, it was only fair to let me send a substitute, in the shape of comfort for her an' the young ones, an' she 'greed, after a spell, to look at it in that light."
"Caleb, are there many more people of that kind in the town?"
"No—no—not quite as bad off as she was, in some ways, and yet in other ways some of 'em are worse. I mean drunkards' families. How a drunkard's wife stays alive at all beats me; the Almighty must 'a' put somethin' in women that we men don't know nothin' about. After lots o' tryin', I made up my mind the only way to help a drunkard's family is to reform the drunkard, so I laid low, an' picked my time, an' when the man had about a ton o' remorse on him, as all drunkards do have once in a while, I'd bargain with him that if he'd stop drinkin' I'd see his family didn't suffer while he was makin' a fresh start. I made out 'twas a big thing for me to do, for they knowed I was sickly and weak, an' if I saved my money, instead o' layin' it out on 'em, I could go off an' take a long rest, an' p'r'aps get to be somethin' more than skin an' bones an' malary. It most gen'rally fetched 'em. It's kept me poor, spite o' my havin' pretty good pay an' nobody o' my own to care for, but there was no one else to do it, except Doc Taggess an' his wife: they've done more good o' that kind than anybody'll know till Judgment Day."
"There'll be some one else in future, Caleb. Tell me whom to begin with, and how, and I shall be extremely thankful to you."
"Just what I might 'a' knowed you would 'a' said, though seems to me you're already helpin' ev'rybody in your own way."
"But I'm spending no money. As a great favor tell me who it is for whom you're doing most, and let me relieve you of it, if only that you may use your money in some other way."
"That's mighty hearty o' you, but I reckon it wouldn't work. You see it's this way. You remember One-Arm Ojam, from Middle Crick township?"
"That tall, dashing-looking Southerner?"
"Exactly. Well, you see he lost his arm fightin' for the South—lost it at Gettysburg, where I got some bullets that threw my machinery out o' gear considerable, besides one that's stuck closer'n a brother ever since. Well, he don't draw no pension,—'tain't necessary to state the reasons,—but I get a middlin' good one. He was grumblin' pretty hard one day 'bout how tough it was on a man to fight the battle o' life single-handed, an' says I to him, knowin' he drank pretty hard:—
"'It must be, when with t'other hand he loads up with stuff that cripples his head too.'