Jerome's mother never knew about the rent in his father's best coat, nor the fight.

To do the boy justice, he kept it from her, neither because of cowardice nor deceit, but because of magnanimity.

"It will just work her all up if she knew 'Lisha Robinson made fun of father's best coat, and it's tore," Jerome told Elmira, who nodded in entire assent.
Elmira sat up in her cold chamber until long after midnight, and darned the rent painfully by the light of a tallow candle.

Then it was a comparatively simple matter, when one had to deal with a woman confined to a rocking-chair, to never give her a full view of the mended coat-tail.

Jerome cultivated a habit of backing out of the room, as from an audience with a queen.