He's the best man in this town; I don't care if he _has_ been in the penitentiary, I'm not goin' to hear a bit of fun made of him, not even by one of his own young ones." All the brute in Tom's nature came to the surface in an instant, yet his amazement kept him silent and staring.

It was such a slight, feeble, contemptible figure, that of the woman who was threatening to punish him,--him, Tom Kimper, whom few men in town would care to meet in a trial of strength.

It set Tom to thinking; he said afterwards the spectacle was enough to make a brickbat wake up and think.

At last he exclaimed, tenderly,-- "Mother!" The woman dropped her weapon and burst into tears, sobbing aloud,-- "You never said it that way before." Tom was so astonished by what he saw and heard that he shuffled up to his mother and awkwardly placed his clumsy hand upon her cheek.

In an instant his mother's arms were around his neck so tight that Tom feared he was being strangled.
"Oh, Tom, Tom! what's got into me?
What's got into both of us?
Ev'rythin's diff'rent to what it used to be.