Chums in Dixie | Page 5

somehow did not seem to think it worth while to mention the same--or else had some reason for keeping it unspoken.
"Well," remarked Phil, who had listened to the way the other spoke with more or less surprise; "I must say that if you do live in the swamp, and your folks are a wild lot, according to what these people around here say, you talk better than any of the boys we've yet run across since we struck this place. Ten to one you've been to school a time, Tony?"
The swamp boy smiled, and shook his head in the negative.
"Never seen the inside of a school in my born days till we come up here a while back, me an' little Madge. But my mother didn't always live in the swamps. Once she taught school down in Pensacola. Dad met her when he was ferryin' shingles, an' that's how it came around. She says as how her children ain't a-goin' to grow up like heathen, if they does have little but rags to wear. And so she showed me how to read, and I'm wantin' to get more books. Looky here, this is one I bought since we kim up the river," and as he spoke he drew out from the inside of his faded and torn flannel shirt a rather soiled volume.
"Robinson Crusoe!" exclaimed Phil, as he vividly remembered the time away back when he too had treasured the volume so dear to the heart of the average boy at a certain age. "Well, Tony, I'm going to make you a promise, that when I get home again there's going to come down this way a box of books that will make you happy. Just to think of it, a boy who longs to know what is going on in this big world, and kept back to spend his life in a swamp. Why, we've got a few aboard here right now, that you shall have when we say good-by to you."
Tony hardly knew whether he might be dreaming or hearing a blessed truth. The look he bent on the kind-hearted Northern lad told how his soul had been stirred by these totally unexpected acts of friendly regard.
"That's awful good of you, sah!" he murmured, as his eyes dropped again--perhaps because he felt them moist once more; and according to a swamp boy's notions it was a silly thing to give way to weakness like this.
"But whatever made you come up here, Tony, so far away from your home?" Larry asked. "You must have known how the people in this town hated your folks; and that if they found out you came from the McGee settlement of squatters they'd make it hard for you."
"Yes, I knowed all that," replied the other, slowly; "but you see, somebody jest had to come along with Madge; an' dad he dassent, 'case they had it in foh him."
"Madge--that means your little sister, doesn't it, Tony?" queried Larry.
"Yep. She's jest so high, an' she's been blind a long time. Last year a gent from the No'th that called hisself a professor, happened to git lost in the swamps, and some of our folks they fetched him in. He was took good care of, an' after a bit was guided out of the swamps. He seen Madge, an' he told dad an' mam that if only she could be treated by a friend o' his'n, who was a very great eye doctor up No'th, he believed Madge, she'd git her sight back ag'in."
Phil started, and looked more closely at the boy as he heard this; but he did not say anything, leaving it to his chum to learn all there was to know about the mission of Tony from the swamps, to the town of those who hated his clan so bitterly.
"And you brought your little blind sister all the way up here, did you?" asked Larry, with a ring of real sympathy in his cheery voice.
"Sho! that want nawthin' much," declared the other, scornfully. "I had a little dugout, which I paddled easy. I spected to stay 'roun' till the doctor he kim, which was to be at a sartin day; but yuh see they run me out. But I gotter a chanct to fix it all up. Madge, she's stoppin' at the cabin o' a man dad used to know. His name is Badger, an' he's got a boy Tom, jest my age."
"That's nice now," remarked Phil, taking a hand in the talk. "And is she going to stay there till this Northern eye doctor arrives, to perform the operation?"
"Yep; but mam guv me the money to let her into the horspittal, so she c'n stay thar, and be looked arter till she's well. Mam sets a heap of store by Madge; an'