The Year Of The Big Thaw

Mr. Emmett did his duty by the visitor from
another world--never doubting the right of it.


_You say that Matthew is your own son, Mr. Emmett?_

Yes, Rev'rend Doane, and a better boy never stepped, if I do say it as
shouldn't. I've trusted him to drive team for me since he was eleven,
and you can't say more than that for a farm boy. Way back when he was a
little shaver so high, when the war came on, he was bounden he was going
to sail with this Admiral Farragut. You know boys that age--like runaway
colts. I couldn't see no good in his being cabin boy on some tarnation
Navy ship and I told him so. If he'd wanted to sail out on a whaling
ship, I 'low I'd have let him go. But Marthy--that's the boy's Ma--took
on so that Matt stayed home. Yes, he's a good boy and a good son.

We'll miss him a powerful lot if he gets this scholarship thing. But I
'low it'll be good for the boy to get some learnin' besides what he gets
in the school here. It's right kind of you, Rev'rend, to look over this
application thing for me.

_Well, if he is your own son, Mr. Emmett, why did you write 'birthplace
unknown' on the line here?_

Rev'rend Doane, I'm glad you asked me that question. I've been turnin'
it over in my mind and I've jest about come to the conclusion it
wouldn't be nohow fair to hold it back. I didn't lie when I said Matt
was my son, because he's been a good son to me and Marthy. But I'm not
his Pa and Marthy ain't his Ma, so could be I stretched the truth jest a
mite. Rev'rend Doane, it's a tarnal funny yarn but I'll walk into the
meetin' house and swear to it on a stack o'Bibles as thick as a cord of
wood.