"I am sorry it happened, sir; but I am willing to do all I can for you without any money," I interposed.
"My gratitude, if nothing else, compels me to give you what I have given; and I hope you never will mention the matter."
"I know that I deserve the humiliation of an exposure," continued the squire, in a very mournful tone; "but I feel that the facts would injure the cause of truth and religion more than they would injure me. My brother used to think I was a hypocrite because I attended to the concerns of the soul. I don't know that he has thought so since I went into the Senate. He used to laugh at me for going to the prayer meetings; and I don't know what he would say if he should learn that I got drunk and fell into the river."
"He will never find it out from me, sir; but I don't want all this money."
"Keep it; but I trust you will not spend it foolishly, nor let my brother know that you have it."
"I will do neither. Captain Fishley and I don't get along well enough together for me to say anything to him."
I told my story; for I felt that if the senator could trust me, I could trust him. I did not say anything about my half-formed intention to run away. The squire was very sorry there was any trouble; but, as it was a family matter, he did not like to say much about it, though he promised to do all he could for me.
"I think I won't go any farther, Buck," said he. "I suppose you will despise me, for you know me better than any other person."
"I'm confident my misfortune--if it can be called by that name--is all for the best. When I go home, I shall come out for temperance, and I think this journey will do me good."
I thought it must be very mortifying for him to talk to me in that way; but he was sincerely penitent, and I am sure he was a better Christian than ever before. He was a truer man than his brother in every respect, and I should have had a high regard for him, even if he had not given me a hundred dollars.
I had money enough now to pay my own and my sister's passage to New Orleans in a steamboat; but I was so fascinated with the raft that I could not think of abandoning it. I was going to build a house upon it; and my fancy pictured its interior, and the pleasure we might enjoy in it, floating down the river. It was a very brilliant ideal which I had made up in connection with the new craft.