“I can't imagine, Mr. Walton,” said the clerk, deeply interested. “Toby, it was that new sign you spoke about--'Stephen Whipple & Son.' It was on the front of the big red building, and seemed to me to be just so many long, black letters stalking clean across the sky. 'Stephen Whipple & Son,' and the last word, small as it was, overtopped all the rest. The thing simply knocked me silly. Wasn't it Saint Paul (it was _one_ of them fellows in the good Book) that fell down in some great light that blazed out over him? Mine wasn't a light; it wasn't wind; it wasn't a kick in the jaw from an army mule, but it hit me like all three combined. I was mad; I was sorry; I was ashamed; but I couldn't walk under that dad-blasted sign. It hung over them doors like a long white sword of an enemy ready to chop me into halves. “I whirled about and went back to my room and actually hid the rest of the day, wondering how on earth I was going to do the job. Once I packed up my valise and started down to pay my bill, with the intention of shirking the whole thing; but I saw that wouldn't do. So I passed another day. I read my Bible a little, and I reckon I prayed some. I don't know, Toby, but I would have bowed down before a heathen idol to have got help out of my predicament. I remembered what you said about seeing Fred at Whipple's house, and the next night I went out and inquired the way to his place. I found it, and, having nothing better to do, I walked clean around it like you did. Nobody was in sight, but I could see lights inside, and then the thought came to me that Fred, my son, maybe, was at that very minute in there keeping company with that old man and woman, and that made me feel as bad as the sign had. I tried to argue that I'd been right in pinning down on the boy for what he had done; but I knew there was no stability to my point, for that fat chap had secured better results through a different method, and _he_ wasn't no blood _kin_. So I went back to the hotel, and made another night of it. I wasn't like you. I couldn't talk to strangers in an off-hand way about it. I tried once to the clerk behind the counter, but I couldn't make it go. He looked at me mighty curious, and I changed the subject. I think I asked him if that State wa'n't heavy on hog-raising.” “You were in an embarrassing position,” Toby remarked, as he shook the drooping lines over the plodding horse's back.