it that they didn't suffer while you were
away, and I guess she's done it: she's that kind of woman."

Sam hurried away. The deacon followed him with his eyes, and finally
said,--

"I wonder how much truth there was in him--about leaning on a higher
power?"

"Oh, about as much as in the rest of us, I suppose."

"What do you mean?" The deacon snapped out this question; his words
sounded like a saw-file at work.

"Merely what I say," the judge replied. "We all trust to our religion
while things go to suit us, but as soon as there's something unusual to
be done--in the way of business--we fall back on our old friend the
Devil, just as Sam Kimper used to do."

"Speak for yourself, judge, and for Sam, if you want to," said the
deacon with fine dignity, "but don't include me among 'the rest of us.'
Good-morning, judge."

"Good-morning, deacon. No offence meant."

"Perhaps not; but some men give it without meaning to. Good-morning."

"I guess the coat fits him," murmured the judge to himself, as he
sauntered homeward.

CHAPTER II.

Sam Kimper hurried through a new street, sparsely settled, crossed a
large vacant lot, tramped over the grounds of an unused foundry, and
finally went through a vacancy in a fence on which there were only
enough boards to show what the original plan had been. A heap of ashes,
a dilapidated chicken-coop, and a forest of tall dingy weeds were the
principal contents of the garden, which had for background a small
unpainted house in which were several windows which had been repaired
with old hats and masses of newspaper. As he neared the house he saw in
a cove in the weeds a barrel lying on its side, and seated in the mouth
of the barrel was a child with a thin, sallow, dirty, precocious face
and with a cat in her arms. The child stared at the intruder, who
stopped and pushed his hat to the back of his head.

"Pop!" exclaimed the child, suddenly, without moving.

"Mary!" exclaimed the man, dropping upon his knees and kissing the
dirty face again and again. "What are you doin' here?"

"Playin' house," said the child, as impassively as if to have had her
father absent two years was so common an experience that his return did
not call for any manifestation of surprise or affection.

"Stand up a minute, dear, and let me look at you. Let's see,--you're
twelve years old now, ain't you? You don't seem to have growed a bit.
How's the rest?"

"Mam's crosser an' crosser," said the chi