couple soon reached home. Tom strolled about the room, his lower lip
hanging down, bestowing glares of different intensity upon every
individual and object present, and even making a threatening motion
with his foot towards the baby, who had crawled about the floor until
it was weary and fretful and was uttering plaintive cries from time to
time. His mother was out of the house somewhere, and the baby continued
to protest against its physical discomforts until Tom indulged in a
violent expletive, which had the effect of temporarily silencing the
child and causing it to look up at him with wondering eyes. Tom
returned the infant's stare for a moment or two, and then, moved by
some spirit which he was not able to identify, he stooped and picked
up the infant and sat down in a chair. When his mother returned, she
was so astonished at what she saw that she hurried out of the house,
down to the shop, and dragged her husband away and back to his home.
When the door was opened, Sam Kimper was almost paralyzed to see his
big son rocking the youngest member of the family to and fro over the
rough floor, and singing, in a hoarse and apparently ecstatic voice,--

"I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines."




CHAPTER XIV.


"Well, doctor," said Deacon Quickset to his pastor one morning, "I hope
you have persuaded that wretched shoemaker to come into the ark of
safety and to lay hold of the horns of the altar."