`` Near three thousand , counting overdue interest . '' `` Well , I 'm sorry for old Stephen , '' said Gabe , returning to his game . `` If anybody deserves a peaceful old age he does . He 's helped more people than you could count , and he was the best Christian in Greenvale , or out of it . '' `` He was too good , '' said a Greenvale man crustily . `` He just let himself be imposed upon all his life . There 's dozens of people owes him and he 's never asked for a cent from them . And he 's always had some shiftless critter or other hanging round and devouring his substance . '' `` D'ye mind that Ben Butler who used to be in Greenvale twenty years ago ? '' asked a third man . `` If ever there was an imp of Satan 't was him -- old Ezra Butler 's son from the valley . Old Stephen kept him for three or four years and was as good to him as if he 'd been his own son . '' `` Most people out our way do mind Ben Butler , '' returned William Jeffers grimly , `` even if he ai n't been heard tell of for twenty years . He was n't the kind you could forget in a hurry . Where 'd he go ? Out to the Kootenay , was n't it ? '' `` Somewhere there . He was a reg ` lar young villain -- up to every kind of mischief . Old Stephen caught him stealing his oats one time and ` stead of giving him a taste of jail for it , as he ought to have done , he just took him right into his family and kept him there for three years . I used to tell him he 'd be sorry for it , but he always persisted that Ben was n't bad at heart and would come out all right some day .
No matter what the young varmint did old Stephen would make excuses XXXXX him -- ` his ma was dead , ' or he ` had n't had no bringing-up . '
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