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Graysons (The Works Of Edward Eggleston - 12 Volumes)
Graysons - The Works Of Edward Eggleston - 12 Volumes Author:Edward Eggleston Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PAYING THE FIDDLER |OU did n't mean no harm, Tommy," said Mrs. Grayson, "I know you did n't." She was fumbling in the drawer of a clothes-press, built by... more » the side of the chimney in the sitting- room of the Grayson farm-house in Hubbard township. She kept her money in this drawer concealed under a collection of miscellaneous articles. Tom sat looking out of the window. Ever since his gambling scrape he had imagined his mother's plaintive voice excusing him in this way. It was not the first time that he had had to be pulled out of disasters produced by his own rashness, and it seemed such an unmanly thing for him to come home with his troubles; but he must pay Lockwood quickly, lest any imprudent word of that not very friendly friend should reach his uncle's ears. Nothing but the fear of bringing on them greater evil could have scourged him into facing his mother and sister with the story of his gambling. Once in their presence, his wretched ' face had made it evident that he was in one of those tight places which were ever recurring in his life. He made a clean breast of it; your dashing dare-devil fellow has less temptation to lie than the rest of us. And now he had told it all,— he made it a sort of atonement to keep back nothing,— and he sat there looking out of the window at the steady dropping of a summer rain which had pelted him ever since he had set out from Moscow. He looked into the rain and listened to the quivering voice of his disappointed mother as she rummaged her drawer to take enough to meet his debt from the dollars accumulated by her own and Barbara's toil and management — dollars put by as a sinking fund to clear the farm of debt. But most of all he dreaded the time when Barbara should speak. She sat at the other window of the room with her face be...« less