“Mr. White,” said the treasurer, “it’s me.  I’ve got young Squiers here, who needs your sympathy and aid tonight.  He’s been beaten and robbed out here on the road while he was on his way to his mother’s home.”

“Who?” inquired the patriarch, stepping out on the porch and eyeing the newcomer, the while he held the lamp down so as to get a good look.  “Billy Squiers!” he exclaimed when he saw who it was.  “Mr. Morton, I’ll not take this man into my house.  I know him.  He’s a drunkard and a liar.  No man has robbed him.  This is all a pretense, and I want you to take him away from here.  Put him in the hotel.  I’ll pay his expenses for the night, but he can’t come into my home,” and he retired, closing the door after him.

The treasurer fell back amazed at this onslaught, but recovered sufficiently to knock at the door once more and declare to his friend that he deemed him no Christian in taking such a stand and that true religion commanded otherwise, even though he suspected the worst.  The man was injured and penniless.  He even went so far as to quote the parable of the good Samaritan who passed down by way of Jericho and rescued him who had fallen among thieves.  The argument had long continued into the night and rain before the old patriarch finally waved them both away.

“Don’t you quote Scripture to me,” he finally shouted defiantly, still holding the light and flourishing it in an oratorical sweep.  “I know my Bible.  There’s nothing in it requiring me to shield liars and drunkards, not a bit of it,” and once more he went in and closed the door.

Nevertheless the youth was housed and fed at his expense and no charge of any kind made against him, although many believed, as did Mr. White, that he was guilty of theft, whereas others of the opposing political camp believed not.  However, considerable opposition, based on old Mr. White’s lack of humanity in this instance, was generated by this argument, and for years he was taunted with it although he always maintained that he was justified and that the Lord did not require any such service of him.

The crowning quality of nearly all of his mercies, as one may easily see, was their humor.  Even he was not unaware, in retrospect, of the figure he made at times, and would smilingly tell, under provocation, of his peculiar attitude on one occasion or another.  Partially from himself, from those who saw it, and the judge presiding in the case, was the following characteristic anecdote gathered.

In the same community with him at one time lived a certain man by the name of Moore, who in his day had been an expert tobacco picker, but who later had come by an injury to his hand and so turned cobbler, and a rather helpless, although not hopeless, one at that.  Mr. White had known this man from boyhood up, and had been a witness at various times to the many changes in his fortunes, from the time, for instance, when he had earned as much as several dollars a day—­good