"He's had a bad example in his father," said the major. "You could train him up the way he'd ought to go."
"Mebbe I could," said the deacon, flattered by this tribute, and reflecting, moreover, that he could get a good deal of work out of Sam without being obliged to pay him wages.
"You could train him up to be a respectable man," said the major. "They wouldn't know what to do with him at the poorhouse."
So the deacon was prevailed upon to take Sam to bring up.
"You're goin to live with me, Samuel," said the deacon, calling the boy to his side.
"Am I?" asked Sam, surveying the old man attentively.
"Yes; I shall try to make a man of you."
"I'll get to be a man anyway, if I live long enough," said Sam.
"I mean I will make a man of you in a moral sense," explained the deacon.
This, however, was above Sam's comprehension.