as managed to get along on the little that the settlers have paid
him, unless it has been in answer to prayer?"

"I am sure he must have been pinched," answered the money-lender,
moving uneasily.

"I would like to relate an instance or two," continued Tom, "if it
would not be--"

"No, no, it won't be disagreeable to me; but I have not time to hear
it now. I believe all you say. I tell you what it is, young man," he
added, rising and pacing the floor, deeply agitated, "I know more
about these matters than folks think. There's my brother; he's a
Methodist minister, just like this missionary about praying. He's
often prayed for me, and says he has the evidence that I shall be
converted, and become a preacher."

"Perhaps you will," earnestly remarked Tom; "you have ability enough
to do a great deal of good."

"So he says. What if it should come about! How strange it would seem
for a cursing old sinner like me to preach and pray as that missionary
does! They call me a _hard_ man. But what can I do? Don't I inform
every soul that asks me for money that he's a fool, and that I shall
hold him to the writing? I get their lands, it is true; but if I did
not, somebody else would. Why, they mortgage all they have, and then
buy the highest priced goods in the store. I've no patience with such
folks, and they don't get much mercy from me."

"But," bluntly said Tom, "I can't see how another's wrong-doing
justifies ours."

"That's so," he returned, gloomily. "But I've a different sort of
business to transact with you, than to defend my misdeeds. That
missionary has been making me a pastoral visit, and he took it upon
himself to inform me that the Lord has called you to preach the
gospel, and that it is my duty to furnish money to send you off to
college, or some such place, where they grind out ministers."

"Me!" exclaimed Tom, rising to his feet.

"Yes, you; sit down, sit down, young man, and be calm;" and the
grocer, in his own excitement, gesticulated violently with both arms
at once. "He says that I'm the only man here that has the money to do
this. Pretty cool--isn't it?--to dictate to old Cowles, the miserly
money-grabber, in that way. I just turned on my heel, and left him in
the middle of his ordering; but, you see, I couldn't help thinking
about it night and day. I wouldn't wonder if that meddling missionary
had been praying about it all the while; and the result is, the old
money-lender is going to give you a lift