“Have you, Sam—for sure?” “For sure I have, Hi. Now if you had a terrible trouble what would you do? I’ve told you where to go to get a toothache cured, but where would you go if—if everything you cared for seemed tumbling to pieces?” Hi came up close to Sam. He had forgotten about his toothache, and he looked at Sam with his ferret eyes, in which the tears had now gathered. “Sam,” he said under his breath, “I know about your trouble. I’ve heard of it. And—and you know your people have gone away. They’ve gone over the mountain, I reckon. Why, Sam, if I was in trouble like that I’d go straight to Mr. Summers.” “But he’s the Methodist preacher, you know, and my folks are Baptists.” “What’s the difference?” cried Hi defiantly. “I don’t see no difference. Anyway, if Mr. Summers was a Populist I’d go to him just the same.” Sam was surprised to hear himself laughing. “I will,” he declared, and he and Hi tramped on toward town. At the dentist’s office Sam started to turn in with Hi, but Hi stopped him. “You don’t need to come,” he said. “I reckon I can stand a little tooth-tinkering. You get on to Mr. Summers. And—and, Sam—” “Yes?” “If you don’t want to stay up there to the house alone, you come down to our place. My ma, she’d love to have you. Sam—” “Yes.” “We know what trouble is, ma and me, see? Don’t nobody around these parts know better than we do. Mr. Carson, he set us on our feet, and now we can hold up our heads and look people in the face. My, but it feels good! But we know what trouble is—all kinds, pretty near. You come to us.” Sam held out a tense hand. “Put it there, Hi.” Hi “put it there” and turned valorously up the dentist’s terrible stairs. As for Sam, he kept vigorously on his way. He thought of those automobiles he had seen the day before, and he felt as if he were all cranked up, with a good spark on, and was ready for a long hard run. So he turned up Burchard Avenue, and in at the gate of the little Methodist parsonage. The first person he saw was Mrs. Summers, who had just got baby Jonathan asleep and was setting him out of doors in his carriage, to grow. She held up a small brown finger to warn Sam that conversation was not to be permitted in the vicinity of the sleeping prince, and led the way into the living room. Then she went in search of her husband, who, it appeared, was shut up in the cell-like room he called his study. He came striding out of his retreat and grasped Sam by the hand. “Thought you were off to Rutherford, son.” “So I was, sir, but—I came back.” “So I see. Why?” “I—I heard what they were saying about my father, sir. Dick Heller told me.”