“Franzy’s changed,” sighs Mamma; “he ain’t the same boy he uste to be. If it wa’n’t fer his drinkin’ and swearin’, I wouldn’t hardly know him.”
“Course not; nor ye didn’t know him till he interduced himself. No more did I. When a feller gets sent up fer fifteen years, and spends ten out of the fifteen tryin’ to contrive a way to get back to his old Pappy and Mammy, it’s apt to change him some. Franzy’s improved, he is. He’s cut some eye-teeth. Ah, what a help he’d be, if I could only git past these snags and back to my old business!”
“Yes,” sighed Mamma, and then suddenly suspended her speech as a lively, and not unmusical, whistle sounded near at hand.
“That’s him,” she said, pushing back her chair and rising. “He seems to be comin’ good-natured.” And she hastened to admit the Prodigal, who, if he had returned in good spirits, had not brought them all on the outside, for as he entered the room with a cheerful smirk and unsteady step, Papa murmured aside:
“Our dear boy’s drunk agin.”
Unmindful of Mamma’s anxious questions concerning his whereabouts, Franzy took the chair she had just vacated, and began a survey of the table.
“Beer!” he said contemptuously. “I wouldn’t drink beer, not—”
“Not when you have drank too much fire-water already, Franzy,” supplemented Papa, with a grin, at the same time drawing the pitcher nearer to himself. “No, my boy, I wouldn’t if—if I were you.”
Franz utters a half maudlin laugh, and turns to the old woman.
“Is this all yer eatables?” he asks thickly. “Bring us somethin’ else.”