“Gettin’ a pair of shoes made, I s’pose,” said Tom, sulkily, for he had just failed in an attempt to extract a quarter of a dollar from his father.

“The shoes that dad was makin’ for him,” said Billy, “was done two or three weeks ago, ’cause I took ’em to his office myself.  But he comes to the shop over an’ over again, ‘cause I’ve seen him there, an’ whenever he comes he manages to get talkin’ with dad about religion.  He always begins it, too, ‘cause dad never says nothin’ about it unless the lawyer starts it first.”

“Well,” said Tom, “seems to me that if he wants to know anythin’ on that subject he could go to some of the preachers, that ought to know a good deal more about it than dad does.”

“Can’t tell so much about that sort o’ thing,” said Billy.  “There’s lots of men in this town that don’t know much about some things that knows a good deal about some others.  You know when that dog we stole last summer got sick, there was nobody in town could do anythin’ for him except that old lame nigger down in the holler.”

“Well, you’re a sweet one, ain’t you?” said Tom.  “What’s dogs got to do with religion, I’d like to know?  You ought to be ashamed o’ yourself, even if you ain’t never been to church.”

“Well,” said Billy, “what I was meanin’ is, some folks seem to know a good deal about things without bein’ learned, that other folks will give their whole time to, an’ don’t know very much about.  Every place that I go to, somebody says somethin’ to me about dad an’ religion.  Say, Tom, do you know dad’s mighty different to what he used to be before he got took up?”

“Of course I do.  He’s always wantin’ folks to work, an’ always findin’ fault with everythin’ we do that ain’t right.  He didn’t use to pay no attention to nothin’; we could do anythin’ we wanted to; and here I am, a good deal bigger, an’ just about as good as a man, an’ he pays more attention to me than he ever did, an’ fusses at me as if I was little bit of a kid.  An’ I don’t like it, either.”

“Well, as he said to me t’other day, Tom, he’s got to be pretty lively to make up for lost time.”

“Well, I wish, then,” said Tom, meditatively, “that he hadn’t never lost no time, ‘cause it’s takin’ all the spirit out o’ me to be hammered at all the time in the way he’s a-doin’.  I just tell you what it is, Billy,” said Tom, stopping short and smiting the palm of one hand with the fist of the other, “I’ve half a mind, off and on, to go to steady work of some kind, an’ I’ll be darned if I don’t do it, if dad don’t let me alone.”

“Mis’ Prency was talkin’ to me the other day about dad,” said Billy, “an’ she asked me whether he wasn’t workin’ awful hard at home after he left the shop, an’ I said, ‘Yes,’ an’ she said, ’I hope you all do all you can to help him?’ an’ I kind o’ felt ashamed, an’ all I could say was that I didn’t see nothin’ I could help him about, an’ she said she guessed if I’d think a little while I could find out.  Say, Tom, let’s go to work a-thinkin’, an’ see if there ain’t some way to give dad a lift.  Seems to me he’s doin’ everythin’ for us all the whole time, an’ we ain’t doin’ nothin’ at all for him.”