Deacon Fuller was a parent of the genuine old Puritanic stock, and his weather-beaten face could put on all the iron sternness of his race and breeding, but behind every visage of that kind there is a strangely mellow something, and he was Zeb’s father. Not a muscle quivered, but his only reply for a moment was:
“Zebedee!”
“Father,” said Zeb, “did old Sol tell you the whole story? If he didn’t I think I’d better.”
“That would be just,” remarked the deacon, and Zeb was in the middle of it before he had time to reconsider his opinion.
The story was not likely to lose much in Zeb’s telling of it, and before it was half finished the deacon began to feel as if there was no other duty in the world so difficult to live up to as a wholesome degree of parental severity.
It was a critical moment, indeed, and Deacon Fuller felt as if a powerful reinforcement had arrived when, just then, the front gate swung open and the pursy form of Gershom Todderley, the miller, came heavily up the path to the side of the house where Zeb and his sire were standing.
Brief, indeed, and somewhat embarrassed, were the mutual greetings, but Deacon Fuller’s face was fast recovering its original rigidity, in spite of the pictures in his mind’s eye of old Gershom going off the broken spring-board.
Zeb never yielded an inch of ground, and fairly astounded his father by holding out his hand with:
“You don’t seem to be hurt a bit. I thought a good swim wouldn’t do you any harm. I take one every day.”
“Zeb,” exclaimed the miller, “I mean to learn to swim. Deacon Fuller, he’s an odd boy. Saved my life this afternoon. Made a fool of myself. Came over to thank you, soon as I could.”