F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 36
sheriff, Mr. Hardscrable, full license to starve us, and put the
thirty cents a day it provides for our living into his breeches
pockets. Say what you will about it, old fellow, it's a brief way of
doing a little profit in the business of starvation. I don't say
this with any ill-will to the State that regards its powerless and
destitute with such criminal contempt-I don't." And he brings water,
gets Tom upon his feet, forces him into a clean shirt, and regards
him in the light of a child whose reformation he is determined on
perfecting. He sees that in the fallen man which implies a hope of
ultimate usefulness, notwithstanding the sullen silence, the gloomy
frown on his knitted brow, and the general air of despair that
pervades the external man.
"There!" he exclaims, having improved the personal of the inebriate,
and folding his arms as he steps back apace to have a better view of
his pupil--"now, don't think of being triced up in this dreary vault.
Be cheerful, brace up your resolution-never let the devil think you
know he is trying to put the last seal on your fate-never!" Having
slipped the black kerchief from his own neck, he secures it about
Tom's, adjusts the shark's bone at the throat, and mounts the braid
hat upon his head with a hearty blow on the crown. "Look at
yourself! They'd mistake you for a captain of the foretop," he
pursues, and good-naturedly he lays his broad, browned hands upon
Tom's shoulders, and forces him up to a triangular bit of glass
secured with three tacks to the wall.
Tom's hands wander down his sides as he contemplates himself in the
glass, saying: "I look a shade up, I reckon! And I feel-I have to
thank you for it, Spunyarn-something different all over me. God
bless you! I won't forget you. But I'm hungry; that's all that ails
me now.
"I may thank my mother--"
"Thank yourself, Tom," interposes the sailor.
"For all this. She has driven me to this; yes, she has made my soul
dead with despair!" And he bursts into a wild, fierce laugh. A
moment's pause, and he says, in a subdued voice, "I'm a slave, a