"
"What have you got, an' whar did I leave him?" Dan managed to ask at
last.
"O, I wouldn't try to play off innocent, if I were you. I know all
about it; and I want to tell you now that you had better turn over a
new leaf and be quick about it, too. Mother says that if folks don't
grow better every day, they grow worse, and I can see that it is true
in your case and father's. You are both going down hill, and the
first thing you know you'll do something that will get you in the
calaboose. Three months ago neither one of you would have been guilty
of stealing."
"Whoop!" yelled Dan, jumping up and knocking his heels together.
"I don't want to go back on either one of you," continued David, "and
neither do I want to tell mother how bad you are; but I'll do it
sooner than let you swindle Don Gordon or anybody else. Why don't you
go to work?"
"Kase I've got jest as much right to set around an' do nothin' as
other folks has," answered Dan, who had had time to recover himself
in some measure. "That's jest why!"
"Mother and I don't sit around and do nothing."
"No, but them Gordons does."
"No, they don't. They all work, Don and Bert as well as the rest."
"If I hadn't seed them ridin' round so much on them circus hosses an'
sailin' in them painted boats of their'n, mebbe I'd be willin' to
b'lieve that," said Dan.
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