“Don’t, eh?” snarled Tappelmine, dropping his axe, and leaning against the house with folded hands. “Well, ’cause I hain’t got any plow, nor any harrow, nor but one hoss, nor rails enough to keep out cattle, nor seed-corn or wheat, nor money to buy it with, nor anything to live on until the crop’s made, nor anything to prevent the crop when it’s made from being grabbed by whoever I owe money to; that’s why I don’t make a crop. An’ I don’t go to church, ’cause I hain’t got any clothes excep’ these ’uns that I’ve got on, an’ my wife’s as bad off as I be. An’ I don’t give up drinkin’, ’cause drinkin’ makes me feel good, an’ the only folks I know that care anything for me drink too. You fellers that only drink on the sly——”
“I never touched a drop in all my life!” roared Father Baguss.
“That’s right,” said Tappelmine; “stick to it; there’s some that’ll believe that yarn. But what I was goin’ to say was, folks that drink on the sly know it’s comfortin’, an’ I don’t see what they go a-pokin’ up fellers that does it fair an’ square for.”
Father Baguss groaned, and some influence—the old man in later days laid it upon the arch-enemy of souls—suggested to him the foolishness of having gone into so great an operation without first counting the cost; hadn’t the great Founder of the old man’s religious faith enjoined a counting of the cost of any enterprise before entering upon it? Father Baguss wished that chapter of Holy Writ might have met his eye that morning at the family altar; but it had not, and, worse yet, Tappelmine was becoming wide awake and excited. It was not what the drunkard had said about drinking or church-going that troubled this would-be reformer; Tappelmine’s outline of his material condition was what annoyed Father Baguss; for, in spite of an occasional attempt to mentally allay his fears by falling back upon prayer, the incentive with which he had called upon Tappelmine had taken strong hold of his conscience, and persisted in making its influence felt. Plows and prayers, harrows and hopes, seed-corn and the seed sown by the wayside mixed themselves inextricably in his mind, as parallels often do when men dream, or when they are confronted by an emergency beyond the control of their own intellects. The old man prayed silently and earnestly for relief, and his prayer was answered in a manner not entirely according to his liking, for he felt moved to say,
“I’ll lend you seed, if you’ll go to work an’ put it right in, an’ I’ll lend you a plow and a team to break up the ground with—I mean, I’ll hire ’em to you, an’ agree to buy your crop at rulin’ price, an’ pay you the difference in cash.”
“That sounds somethin’ like,” remarked Tappelmine, thrusting his hands into his trowsers’ pockets, and making other preparations for a business talk; “but,” he continued, “what am I to live on along till harvest? ’Tain’t even winter yet.”
Father Baguss groaned, and asked, “What was you a-goin’ to live on if I hadn’t offered seed and tools, Tappelmine?”
“The Lord knows,” answered the never-do-well, with unimpeachable veracity.