"... Wallace give him the money f'r his shotgun.... An' mother--she al'ays knowed when Jack had one o' his girl-cryin' fits--she used to go up after Jack come in them nights, an' when he got asleep so he wouldn't know it she'd go in and kiss him.... Watched and ketched her at it, but never let on.... She run down bad--gittin' up before daylight an' broke of her rest like that.... I started in oncet to tell her he was no good, but I jest couldn't.... Turned it off on a hoss by the name o' Jack we had, an' sold him to make good f'r twenty-five dollars less'n he was wuth, ruther'n tell her what I started to.... She loved that wuthless boy, neighbor--there ain't no use denyin' it, she did love him." He paused a long while, either to ponder on the strange infatuation of "mother" for "Jack" or to allow me to digest his statement. A dog--one of the shaggy brown enthusiasts that chase trains--ran along by the cars until distanced, and then went back wagging his tail as if he had expelled from the neighborhood some noxious trespasser--as he may have conceived himself to have done. Goliath watched him with great apparent interest. "Collie," said he, at last. "Know anything about collies? Funny dogs! Lick one of 'em oncet an' he's never no good any more.... All kind o' shruvle up by lickin', they're that tender-hearted.... Five year ago this fall Tom spiled a fifty-dollar pedigreed collie by jest slappin' his ears an' jawin' him.... Some critters is like that ... Jack ... was!" He faltered here, and then flamed out into pugnacity, squaring his huge jaw as if I had accused him--as I did in my heart, I suspect. "But the dog," he rumbled, "was wuth somethin'--Jack never was.... Cryin' around f'r thirty-seven fifty!... Talkin' o' debts o' honor!... That showed me plain enough he wasn't wuth botherin' with.... Got his mother to come an' ask f'r an allowance o' money--so much a month.... Ever hear of such a thing? An' him not turnin' his hand to a lick of work except around the house helpin' mother.... Tom an' Wallace bed quite a little start in live stock by this time, an' money in bank.... Jack hed the same lay, but he fooled his away--fooled it away.... Broke flat all the time, an' wantin' an allowance.... Mother said the young sprouts at the club had allowances ... an' he read in books that laid around the house about fellers in England an' them places havin' allowances an' debts of honor.... Mother seemed to think one while that we was well enough off so we could let Jack live like the fellers in the books.... He lived more in them books than he did in South Dakoty, an' talked book lingo all the time.... Mother soon seen she was wrong.