“Glad you told me,” said Tappelmine, abruptly raising his axe, and starting two or three large chips in quick succession.
The light seemed suddenly to be departing, and Father Baguss made a frantic clutch at it.
“You needn’t have waited to be told,” said he. “You know well enough we’re all human bein’s about here.”
“Well,” said Tappelmine, leaning on his axe, and taking particular care not to look into his neighbor’s eye, “I used to borry a little somethin’—corn, mebbe, or a piece of meat once in a while; but folks didn’t seem over an’ above glad to lend ’em, an’ I’m one of the kind of fellows that can take a hint, I am.”
“That was ’cause you never said a word ’bout payin’ back—leastways, you didn’t at our house.”
Tappelmine did not reply, except by looking sullen, and Father Baguss continued:
“Besides, it’s kinder discouragin’ to lend to a feller that gets tight a good deal—gets tight sometimes, anyhow; it’s hard enough to get paid by folks that always keep straight.”
As Tappelmine could say nothing to controvert this proposition, he continued to look sullen, and Father Baguss, finding the silence insupportably annoying, said rather more than he had intended to say. There are natures which, while containing noble qualities, are most awkward expositors of themselves, and that of Baguss was one of this sort. Such people are given to action which is open to criticism on every side; yet, in spite of their awkwardnesses, they find in their weakness the source of whatever strength they discover themselves to be possessed of. Father Baguss was one of this special division of humanity; but—perhaps for his own good—he was unconscious of his strength and painfully observant of his weakness. Yet he continued as follows:
“Look here, Tappelmine, I came over here on purpose to find out if I could do anything to help you get into better habits. You don’t amount to a row of pins as things are now, and I don’t like it; it’s throwed up to me, because I’m your neighbor, and there’s folks that stick to it that I’m to blame. I don’t see how; but if there’s any cross layin’ around that fits my shoulders, I s’pose I ought to pick it up an’ pack it along. Now, why in creation don’t you give up drinkin,’ an’ go to church, an’ make a crop, an’ do other things like decent folks do? You’re bigger’n I am, an’ stouter, an’ your farm’s as good as mine if you’d only work it. Now why you don’t do it, I don’t see.”