The poor woman was not to blame. She never had seen a
ten-dollar bill since the day of her marriage, when, in a spasm of
drunken enthusiasm, her husband gave a ten-dollar Treasury note to the
clergyman who officiated on that joyous occasion.
One evening Sam took his small change from his pocket to give his son
Tom money enough to buy a half-bushel of corn-meal in the village. As
he held a few pieces of silver in one hand, touching them rapidly with
the forefinger of the other, his son Tom exclaimed,--
"You're just overloaded with money, old man! Say, gi' me a quarter to
go to the ball game with? I'm in trainin', kind o' like, an' I ain't
afeard to say that mebbe I'll turn out a first-class pitcher one of
these days."
"Tom," said his father, trying to straighten his feeble frame, as his
eyes brightened a little, "I wish I could: I'd like you to go into
anything that makes muscle. But I can't afford it. You know I'm not
workin' yet, an' until I do work the only hope of this family is in the
little bit of money I've got in my pocket."
"Well," said Tom, thrusting out his lower lip, slouching across the
room, and returning again, "I don't think a quarter's enough to trouble
anybody's mind about what'll happen to his family afterwards. I've
heard a good deal from the mother about you bein' converted, and
changin' into a different sort of a man, but I don't think much of any
kind of converted dad that don't care enough for his boy to give him a
quarter to go to a ball game.
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