"Done yer credit, deacon, too," declared Tom, and again the crowd uttered a confirmatory murmur. "Ef some folks—deacons, too—wuz ez good—But go ahead, deac'n."
"Next thing we heard from her, he had gone to the place he was raised in; but a friend of his, who went with him, came back, an' let out he'd got tight, an' been arrested. She writ him right off, beggin' him to come home, and go with her up to our place, where he could be out of temptation an' where she'd love him dearer than ever."
"Pure gold, by thunder!" ejaculated Tom, while a low "You bet," was heard all over the room.
Tom's eyes were in such a condition that he thought the deacon's were misty, and the deacon noticed the same peculiarities about Tom.
"She never got a word from him," continued the deacon; "but one of her own came back, addressed in his writing."
"The infernal scoundrel!" growled Tom, while from the rest of the boys escaped epithets which caused the deacon, indignant as he was, to shiver with horror.
"She was nearly crazy, an' started to find him, but nobody knowed where he was. The postmaster said he'd come to the office ev'ry day for a fortnight, askin' for a letter, so he must hev got hers."
"Ef all women had such stuff in 'em," sighed Tom, "there'll be one fool less in California. 'Xcuse me, deac'n."
"She never gev up hopin' he'd come back," said the deacon, in accents that seemed to indicate labored breath "an' it sometimes seems ez ef such faith 'd be rewarded by the Lord some time or other. She teaches Pet—that's her child—to talk about her papa, an' to kiss his pictur; an' when she an' Pet goes to sleep, his pictur's on the pillar beween 'em."
"An' the idee that any feller could be mean enough to go back on such a woman! Deacon, I'd track him right through the world, an' just tell him what you've told us. Ef that didn't fetch him, I'd consider it a Christian duty an' privilege to put a hole through him."