“Pure gold, by thunder!” ejaculated Tom, while a low “You bet,” was heard all over the room.

Tom’s eyes were in such a condition that he thought the deacon’s were misty, and the deacon noticed the same peculiarities about Tom.

“She never got a word from him,” continued the deacon; “but one of her own came back, addressed in his writing.”

“The infernal scoundrel!” growled Tom, while from the rest of the boys escaped epithets which caused the deacon, indignant as he was, to shiver with horror.

“She was nearly crazy, an’ started to find him, but nobody knowed where he was.  The postmaster said he’d come to the office ev’ry day for a fortnight, askin’ for a letter, so he must hev got hers.”

“Ef all women had such stuff in ’em,” sighed Tom, “there’ll be one fool less in California.  ’Xcuse me, deac’n.”

“She never gev up hopin’ he’d come back,” said the deacon, in accents that seemed to indicate labored breath “an’ it sometimes seems ez ef such faith ’d be rewarded by the Lord some time or other.  She teaches Pet—­that’s her child—­to talk about her papa, an’ to kiss his pictur; an’ when she an’ Pet goes to sleep, his pictur’s on the pillar beween ’em.”

“An’ the idee that any feller could be mean enough to go back on such a woman!  Deacon, I’d track him right through the world, an’ just tell him what you’ve told us.  Ef that didn’t fetch him, I’d consider it a Christian duty an’ privilege to put a hole through him.”

“I couldn’t do that,” replied the deacon, “even ef I was a man uv blood; fur Hesby loves him, an’ he’s Pet’s dad; Besides, his pictur looks like a decent young chap—­ain’t got no hair on his face, an’ looks more like an innercent boy than anythin’ else.  Hesby thinks Pet looks like him, an’ I couldn’t touch nobody looking like Pet.  Mebbe you’d like to see her pictur,” continued the deacon, drawing from his pocket an ambrotype, which he opened and handed Tom.

“Looks sweet ez a posy,” said Tom, regarding it tenderly.  “Them little lips uv hern look jest like a rose when it don’t know whether to open a little further or not.”

The deacon looked pleased, and extracted another picture, and remarked, as he handed it to Tom: 

“That’s Pet’s mother.”

[Illustration:  THE DEACON LOOKED PLEASED, AND EXTRACTED ANOTHER PICTURE, AND REMARKED, AS HE HANDED IT TO TOM, “THAT’S PET’S MOTHER.”  TOM TOOK IT, LOOKED AT IT, AND SCREAMED, “MY WIFE!”]

Tom took it, looked at it, and screamed: 

“My wife!”

He threw himself on the floor, and cried as only a big-hearted man can cry.

The deacon gazed wildly about, and gasped: 

“What’s his name?—­tell me quick!”

“Tom Dosser!” answered a dozen or more.

“That’s him!  Bless the Lord!” cried the deacon, and finding a seat, dropped into it, and buried his face in his hands.