Confident as Alice was that her husband was still living,
Aunt Ella had protested effectually against her implanting any such
hope in the child's mind, and he had been brought up with the belief
that his father had died before he was born. There was one place
where his father's praises were faint, and that was at the grocery
store.
[ILLUSTRATION: "'I S'POSE ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU'LL BE WEIGHIN' SUGAR
AND DRAWIN' 'LASSES.'"]
"Ah, my young man," said Mr. Obadiah Strout, on his first visit,
"your father's money started this business, but I've worked mighty
hard to build it up to what it is now. I s'pose one of these days
you'll be weighin' sugar and drawin' 'lasses."
"I guess not," exclaimed Hiram. "Rich men's sons don't us'ally take
to their father's business."
"You're right for once, Hiram," Mr. Strout acknowledged. "They uzally
run through the money, bust the biz'ness and bring up in jail."
"Well, this young fellow won't," cried Hiram, hotly. "He's goin' to
be a great man like his father, won't you, Bub?"
"Bub" took a handful of raisins from an open box, and eyed his
questioner wonderingly.
"There's many a slip 'twixt the cow and the churn," said Mr. Strout
as he took a ten cent cigar from the case and lighted it. Perhaps the
sight of the son recalled a scene in the same shop many years before
on Quincy's first visit to Mason's Corner when a box of cigars had
been the subject of an animated discussion between the boy's father
and himself, followed by a passage-at-arms--or, more correctly
speaking--fists.
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