care.  He was enjoying the gloom that was settling down upon him.  Slowly, and by almost imperceptible degrees, there rose in his consciousness the conviction of guilt.  At the end of an hour, the feeling that he was a thief swept over him, covering his sense of personal grievance like a mantle.  For another hour he wrestled with a persistent devil that was tempting him to strangle his scruples; he won.  Jimmy Sears had seventeen cents in his cast-iron bank at home—­the result of a year’s careful saving.  He crossed the creek and trudged back to town, and fancied that he was walking in a sanctified road; for he was full of the resolve to go straight to the store of the grocer who owned the chicken, and to offer all his available resources in payment for the wrong he had done.  Only the heel of his left foot touched the ground, and he progressed slowly.  So the afternoon was old when he turned the corner and trudged into Baker’s store.  The speech he was going to make, Jimmy had recited to himself over and over.  He intended to walk up to the counter and say,—­

“I want to pay for that chicken I took, Mr. Baker.”

To Jimmy that sounded sufficiently humble, and yet it did not seem completely abject.  He fancied the grocer would reply,—­

“All right, Jimmy; it will be twenty cents.”

To which the boy expected to answer, in a clear, strong voice,—­

“Well, Mr. Baker, I have seventeen cents at home; you may have that, and I will bring in the rest as soon as my mushmelons are ripe.”

With that agreement reached, Jimmy saw himself limping out of the store.  He harbored a hope that maybe the grocer, pitying the poor, lame boy, would call him back, cancel the debt, and perhaps give him a stick of licorice.  Jimmy knew his part by heart.  He was sure there would be no halt nor break in this dialogue.  But the demon that was torturing his destiny that day probably chuckled as Jimmy crossed the threshold of the grocery store.

The boy that the grocer saw when he looked up from the pickle barrel certainly had a badly freckled face; the grocer thought the boy had bold, mean eyes.  The youthful jaw set firmly, and the pain in his foot engraved ugly lines in his face.  The button was off one wristband.  A long tear down the lower part of his trousers’ leg revealed a glimpse of brown, tanned skin.  He was not a boy that looked like a creature of dreams and of high resolve.  No boy that amounts to much ever does look the part, as the actors say.  So when Jimmy Sears—­ragged and brazen—­stood before the wronged chicken owner, rage flooded the man’s bosom.  He rushed around the counter end, mumbling at the boy.  The instinct of fear crowded all the fine speeches out of Jimmy’s head.  He backed off, and exclaimed, as he saw the grocer grab a butter paddle,—­

“Dern you, don’t you touch me; I’ll pay for your old chicken.  Watch out now!”

Two scale weights slipped involuntarily into Jimmy’s hands, and he backed from the counter to the sidewalk.  His hands were uplifted as if to throw the weights.  The grocer had not come up to the boy who shouted in a burst of fear and anger,—­