Doesn't Tom Buffum treat your pa well ?" "Oh, no, sir; he doesn't give him enough to eat, and he doesn't let him have things in his room, because he says he'll hurt himself, or break them all to pieces, and he doesn't give him good clothes, nor anything to cover himself up with when it's cold." "Well, boy," said Jim, his great frame shaking with indignation, "do ye want to know what I think of Tom Buffum ?" "Yes, sir." "It won't do fur me to tell ye, 'cause I'm rough, but if there's anything awful bad--oh, bad as anything can be, in Skeezacks--I should say that Tom Buffum was an old Skeezacks." Jim Fenton was feeling his way.
"I should say he was an infernal old Skeezacks.

That isn't very bad, is it ?" "I don't know sir," replied the boy.
"Well, a d----d rascal; how's that ?" "My father never used such words," replied the boy.
"That's right, and I take it back.

I oughtn't to have said it, but unless a feller has got some sort o' religion he has a mighty hard time namin' people in this world.

What's that ?" Jim started with the sound in his ear of what seemed to be a cry of distress.
"That's one of the crazy people.

They do it all the time.'" Then Jim thought of the speeches he had heard in the town-meeting, and recalled the distress of Miss Butterworth, and the significance of all the scenes he had so recently witnessed.
"Look 'ere, boy; can ye keep right 'ere," tapping him on his breast, "whatsomever I tell ye?
Can you keep yer tongue still ?--hope you'll die if ye don't ?" There was something in these questions through which the intuitions of the lad saw help, both for his father and himself.