"I declare," said Mrs. White, descending suddenly from her high moral
stand-point, "I declare that boy has stepped right on the threshold of
the back-door," and she stuffed her white handkerchief into her pocket,
and took down the floor-cloth to wipe off the imperceptible blemish left
by Ralph's boot-heels. And Mr. White followed his nephew to the stable
to request that he would be a little careful what he did about anybody
in the poor-house, as any trouble with the Joneses might defeat Mr.
White's nomination to the judgeship of the Court of Common Pleas.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A CHARITABLE INSTITUTION.

When Ralph got back to Miss Nancy Sawyer's, Shocky was sitting up in bed
talking to Miss Nancy and Miss Semantha. His cheeks were a little
flushed with fever and the excitement of telling his story; theirs were
wet with tears. "Ralph," whispered Miss Nancy, as she drew him into the
kitchen, "I want you to get a buggy or a sleigh, and go right over to
the poor-house and fetch that boy's mother over here. It'll do me more
good than any sermon I ever heard to see that boy in his mother's arms
to-morrow. We can keep the old lady over Sunday."

Ralph was delighted, so delighted that he came near kissing good Miss
Nancy Sawyer, whose plain face was glorified by her generosity.

But he did not go to the poor-house immediately. He waited until he saw
Bill Jones, the Superintendent of the Poor-House, and Pete Jones, the
County Commissioner, who was still somewhat shuck up, ride up to the
court-house. Then he drove out of the village, and presently hitched his
horse to the poor-house fence, and took a survey of the outside. Forty
hogs, nearly ready for slaughter, wallowed in a pen in front of the
forlorn and dilapidated house; for though the commissioners allowed a
claim for repairs at every meeting, the repairs were never made, and it
would not do to scrutinize Mr. Jones's bills too closely, unless you
gave up all hope of renomination to office. One curious effect of
political aspirations in Hoopole County, was to shut the eyes that they
could not see, to close the ears that they could not hear, and to
destroy the sense of smell. But Ralph, not being a politician, smelled
the hog-pen without and the stench within, and saw everywhere the
transparent fraud, and heard the echo of Jones's cruelty.

A weak-eyed girl admitted him, and as he did not wish to make his
business known at once, he affected a sort of idle interest in