Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/137

 the kindliness of an understanding attitude that changed the sullenness and bitterness. Probably he did not think of it. Happened so, he would doubtless have said.

"Well, sir, we thrashed that all out. He saw where he got off wrong. Gamblin'—at first just for fun. And all the rest followed. I talked to him like a Dutch Uncle. We settled it all and got him back on the right path. He is to pay it all back little by little, and of course we saw his wife through. 'Twasn't fair that she should suffer because he got off the path. But he is on again now, and workin' like a horse. He won't lose the track again, not on your life I see it all. He'd orter have made a landmark of his real honesty when he first got off and tied to it and circled around it till he found the path." The speaker again dried a perspiring brow, confused in his efforts to express unaccustomed metaphor. His mind was scaling unwonted heights of expression and his words clambered slowly after it.