Then Ill Come Back to You | Page 8

She never would go even so far as to try it on, but if you don't
mind---- That coat of yours must be a trifle hot for this weather, I
should say."
Steve reached out a hand that trembled a little and took the coat. He
took it and stared at it with that same strained and hungry look which
he had bestowed a half hour before upon the "City."
"Do you mean," he asked, and his lips remained parted breathlessly
upon the question, "do you mean--this yere's for me?"
Caleb thought of the "injine"--the "steam injine."
"I mean just that, if you'll have it," he replied. The boy slipped his little
body into the garment and wheeled to survey himself in a mirror. In
comparison with the dismembered swallowtail it was the purple of a
Solomon. There was a cartridge web across its front, with loops, and
after he had looked long and long at his reflection, the boy thrust both
his thumbs into the belt it made.
Then: "Them's fer ketridges," he announced solemnly.
He scowled judiciously and nodded.

And, "I'll hev to git me some, the first thing in the mornin'," he said.
That was his only remark then, and yet Caleb felt amply repaid. Later
he had more to say, but for the time being he merely followed Caleb
back downstairs, walking very stiff and straight except when, with
every few steps, he leaned over the better to see the looped webbing
across his middle.
And at table that evening the man came to know another trait in the odd
little stranger's odd makeup which, coupled with those which he had
already mentally tabulated for future private contemplation, set him to
wondering more than a little.
With the appearance of the first dish upon the table that night the boy
was very frankly nonplussed at the array of implements upon each side
of his plate, placed there for him to manipulate. He scarcely knew one
from the other, and the separate uses for each not at all. But the way in
which he met the problem made Caleb lift his eyes and meet Sarah's
inscrutable glance with something akin to triumph. For there was no
awkwardness in the boy's procedure, no flushing embarrassment, no
shame-facedness nor painfully self-conscious attempt to cover his
ignorance. Instead, he sat and waited--sat and watched openly until
Miss Sarah had herself selected knife or fork, as the case might be--and
then, turning back to those beside his own place, frowning intently, he
made painstaking selection therefrom. Nor did he once make a mistake.
And Caleb, after he had begun to mark a growing softness in the color
of his sister's thin cheeks, ventured to draw into conversation their
small guest.
The boy talked freely and openly, always with his wide eyes upon the
face of his questioner, always in the grave and slightly drawling idioms
of the woods. Again he confided that he had never before been out of
the timber; he explained that "Old Tom's" untimely taking-off a
fortnight back had been alone responsible for this pilgrimage. And that
opened the way for a question which Caleb had been eager to ask him.
"I suppose this--this 'Old Tom' was some kin of yours?" he observed.

The boy shook his head.
"No," he answered, "no, I ain't never hed no kin. I ain't never hed
nobody--father ner mother, neither!"
Caleb saw Sarah start a little and bite her thin lips. But the bird-like
movement of surprise was lost upon the speaker.
"I ain't never hed nobody," he re-averred, and Caleb, straining to catch
a note of self-pity or plea for sympathy in the words, realized that the
boy didn't even know what the one or the other was. "I ain't never hed
nobody but Old Tom. And he was--he wasn't nuthin' but what he called
my--my"--the sentence was broken while he paused to get the phrase
correctly--"he was what he called my 'logical custodian.'"
Guiltily Caleb knew that his next question would savor of indelicacy,
but he had to ask it just the same.
"Still, I suppose his--his taking-off must have been something in the
nature of a blow to you?" he suggested.
The boy pursed his lips.
"Wall, no," he exclaimed at last, nonchalantly. "No-o-o! I can't say's it
was. We'd both been expectin' it, I reckon. Old Tom, he often sed he
knew that some day he'd go and git just blind, stavin' drunk enough to
try an' swim the upper rapids--and two weeks ago he done so!"
And the rest of the words were quite casual.
"I kind-a reckon he'd hev made it, at that," he offered his opinion, "if
they'd hev been a trifle more water. But the rocks was too close to the
surface fer comfortable swimmin'. The