red, and in time effects would result from this,
if opportunity offered--effects of a quite serious nature, too. Under the
influence of a great mental and moral upheaval, his character and his
habits had taken on the appearance of complete change, but after a while
with the subsidence of the storm, both began to settle toward their
former places. He dropped gradually back into his old frivolous and
easygoing ways and conditions of feeling and manner of speech, and no
familiar of his could have detected anything in him that differentiated
him from the weak and careless Tom of other days.
The theft raid which he had made upon the village turned out better than
he had ventured to hope. It produced the sum necessary to pay his gaming
debts, and saved him from exposure to his uncle and another smashing of
the will. He and his mother learned to like each other fairly well. She
couldn't love him, as yet, because there "warn't nothing _to_ him," as
she expressed it, but her nature needed something or somebody to rule
over, and he was better than nothing. Her strong character and
aggressive and commanding ways compelled Tom's admiration in spite of the
fact that he got more illustrations of them than he needed for his
comfort. However, as a rule her conversation was made up of racy tales
about the privacies of the chief families of the town (for she went
harvesting among their kitchens every time she came to the village), and
Tom enjoyed this. It was just in his line. She always collected her
half of his pension punctually, and he was always at the haunted house to
have a chat with her on these occasions. Every now and then, she paid
him a visit there on between-days also.
Occasions he would run up to St. Louis for a few weeks, and at last
temptation caught him again. He won a lot of money, but lost it, and
with it a deal more besides, which he promised to raise as soon as
possible.
For this purpose he projected a new raid on his town. He never meddled
with any other town, for he was afraid to venture into houses whose ins
and outs he did not know and the habits of whose households he was not
acquainted with. He arrived at the haunted house in disguise on the
Wednesday before the advent of the twins--after writing his Aunt Pratt
that he would not arrive until two days after--and laying in hiding there
with his mother until toward daylight Friday morning, when he went to his
uncle's house and entered by the back way with his own key, and slipped
up to his room wh