Dan nodded, and his father continued:
“Some ladies who were interested in mission work at the prison took the matter up and got me my pardon. It's a fearful and a wicked thing for a man to lose his temper, Dannie. At first I was bitter against every one who had a hand in sending me to prison, but I've put that all from my heart. It was right I should be punished.”
He rose from his chair, striking the ashes from his pipe.
“Ain't it very late, Dannie? I'll just put away my things, and then we can go to bed. I didn't mean to keep you up.”
Oakley watched his precise and orderly arrangement of his few belongings. He could see that it was a part of the prison discipline under which he had lived for almost a quarter of a century. When the contents of his bundle were disposed of to his satisfaction, he put on a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, with large, round glasses, and took up a well-thumbed Bible, which he had placed at one side.
“I hope you haven't forgotten this book, Dannie,” tapping it softly with a heavy forefinger.
CHAPTER VII
KERR and Holt were at Buckhom Junction with the pay-car, a decrepit caboose that complained in every wheel as the engine jerked it over the rails. Holt said that its motion was good for Kerr's dyspepsia. He called it the pay-car cure, and professed to believe it a subtle manifestation of the general's benevolence.