Sally of Missouri | Page 6

rat back like I said I'd do?" he queried slily.
"No, I think not. And for my part, I am glad you didn't, for I am hoping
that if you are going toward Poetical you won't mind my company. You
see, it's pretty dog-on lonely." A very little of the ridge road sufficed to
make Bruce sick for comradeship, and his voice showed it. The boy
turned an impressionable, sympathetic face.

"Come rat along," he said. He looked at Bruce a moment questioningly
before adding, "Reckin's haow you aint usen to the quiet yit. Taint so
lonely, the woods an' the hills whend you know um." He twisted his
head like a bird and looked out across the extensive sweep of the land
and the long slow curve of the river, a deep inspiration swelling his
chest. "Simlike they up an' talk to you, the woods an' the hills an' the
quiet, whend you know um," he said.
All on the instant Steering knew that, as in the case of Old Bernique,
here again was character. "Character" seemed distinctly the richest and
the pleasantest thing in Missouri. He rode in a little closer to his
companion, drawn to him irresistibly, recognising in him the sweet,
untutored poetry of a wildwood nature, whose young timidity was
trembling and steadying into the placating, magnetic assurance of a boy,
fresh-hearted as a berry. Steering had encountered the same sort of
poetry in other unspoiled boys, splendid child-men whom he had
known in other walks of life, and he had a quick affection for it. It was
always as though on its crystal clearness a man might see the white
sails of his own youth set back toward him.
"Yes," he answered, "I think you are right about that. They do talk, the
hills and the woods and the quiet,--only a fellow grows dull, gets his
ears full of electric gongs and push-bells, and forgets to listen."
The boy looked up with quick-witted question. "Y'aint f'm this part of
the kentry, air you?" he asked.
"No. I am from--well, from Bessietown last. Where are you from?"
The boy laughed and glanced gaily at his briar-torn clothes. "F'm the
woods," he said.
"My name is Bruce Steering."
"Mine's Piney."
They fell then to talking of many things, as they rode toward Poetical,
but inevitably they spoke chiefly of the great State of Missouri. On the

subject of Missouri the boy talked, as old Bernique had talked, with
expansive naïveté. In his roamings he had ridden the State up and down,
and had found much to love in it. "You'll like her, too, all righty," he
told Bruce confidently, "whend you git broke to her." On one of youth's
candid impulses to speak up for the life on the inside, the cherished
desire, the gallant ideal, the buoyant fancy, he made a supple, sudden
divergence in the conversation. "D'you know," he said, "they aint no
place whur I'd drur be than Mizzourah ceppen only one."
"Where's that?" asked Bruce, and to his immense astonishment the boy
answered quickly:
"Italy."
"Why, how does that happen, Piney? Ever been there?"
"Nope. Hearn Unc' Bernique tell abaout it, thass all. It 'ud suit me,
though. I know that." His eyes grew dreamy and he seemed to be
looking far beyond Missouri. One could almost see the fine, illusory
spell of the far Latin land upon him, the spiritual bond, the pull of
temperament that made the hill boy at one with Italy, blest of poetry. "I
d'n know huccome I want to go so bad," he went on with a deep breath,
"wouldn' turn araoun' th'ee times on my heels to go anywhur else, but I
shoo do want to go to Italy."
"Were your people Italians, Piney?"
"Nope. Kim f'm S'loois. But still, I got that feelin' abaout Italy. Simlike
I'd be--oh, sorta at home tha'. Had that same feelin' ev' since Unc'
Bernique begand to tell me abaout Italy. I'm a-goin' tha', tew, some day,
all righty," he concluded at last, waking up from his little dream slowly.
"Goin' to be long over to Poetical, Mist' Steerin'?" he diverged again,
with his lively mental agility.
"No, son. From Poetical I am going on to"--Bruce stopped to gather
strength to project the word with the large and cadenced inflection he
had enjoyed in the hill farm people,--"going on to Canaan!"

"Gre't gosh!" said the boy, and something in the way he said it made
Bruce look at him quickly. Piney's brows were lifted and his lips were
pulled back. He seemed to try to be as much impressed as Bruce
expected him to be. To Steering this sort of comradeship was growing
golden.
"Well, now," he said, playing with the little joy of being understood,
"haven't they the court-house at Canaan?