Part 30 (1/2)

After he had finished his supper he looked longingly at his pipe. He hesitated for a second, for he realized the necessity of saving his precious tobacco; then he became reckless: such enormous good fortune as a home must mean more to follow; it must be the first of a series of happy things. He filled his pipe and smoked. Then he went to bed on the old couch in the other room, and slept like a child until the sun shone through the trees in flickering lines. Then he rose, went out to the brook which ran near the house, splashed himself with water, returned to the house, cooked the remnant of the eggs and bacon, and ate his breakfast with the same exultant peace with which he had eaten his supper the night before. Then he sat down in the doorway upon the sunken sill and fell again to considering his main problem. He did not smoke.

His tobacco was nearly exhausted and he was no longer reckless. His head was not turned now by the feeling that he was at home. He considered soberly as to the probable owner of the house and whether he would be allowed to remain its tenant. Very soon, however, his doubt concerning that was set at rest. He saw a disturbance of the shadows cast by the thick boughs over the cart path by a long outreach of darker shadow which he knew at once for that of a man. He sat upright, and his face at first a.s.sumed a defiant, then a pleading expression, like that of a child who desires to retain possession of some dear thing. His heart beat hard as he watched the advance of the shadow. It was slow, as if cast by an old man. The man was old and very stout, supporting one lopping side by a stick, who presently followed the herald of his shadow. He looked like a farmer. Stebbins rose as he approached; the two men stood staring at each other.

”Who be you, neighbor?” inquired the newcomer.

The voice essayed a roughness, but only achieved a tentative friendliness. Stebbins hesitated for a second; a suspicious look came into the farmer's misty blue eyes. Then Stebbins, mindful of his prison record and fiercely covetous of his new home, gave another name. The name of his maternal grandfather seemed suddenly to loom up in printed characters before his eyes, and he gave it glibly. ”David Anderson,” he said, and he did not realize a lie. Suddenly the name seemed his own.

Surely old David Anderson, who had been a good man, would not grudge the gift of his unstained name to replace the stained one of his grandson.

”David Anderson,” he replied, and looked the other man in the face unflinchingly.

”Where do ye hail from?” inquired the farmer; and the new David Anderson gave unhesitatingly the name of the old David Anderson's birth and life and death place--that of a little village in New Hamps.h.i.+re.

”What do you do for your living?” was the next question, and the new David Anderson had an inspiration. His eyes had lit upon the umbrella which he had found the night before.

”Umbrellas,” he replied, laconically, and the other man nodded. Men with sheaves of umbrellas, mended or in need of mending, had always been familiar features for him.

Then David a.s.sumed the initiative; possessed of an honorable business as well as home, he grew bold. ”Any objection to my staying here?” he asked.

The other man eyed him sharply. ”Smoke much?” he inquired.

”Smoke a pipe sometimes.”

”Careful with your matches?”

David nodded.

”That's all I think about,” said the farmer. ”These woods is apt to catch fire jest when I'm about ready to cut. The man that squatted here before--he died about a month ago--didn't smoke. He was careful, he was.”

”I'll be real careful,” said David, humbly and anxiously.

”I dun'no' as I have any objections to your staying, then,” said the farmer. ”Somebody has always squat here. A man built this shack about twenty year ago, and he lived here till he died. Then t'other feller he came along. Reckon he must have had a little money; didn't work at nothin'! Raised some garden-truck and kept a few chickens. I took them home after he died. You can have them now if you want to take care of them. He rigged up that little chicken-coop back there.”

”I'll take care of them,” answered David, fervently.

”Well, you can come over by and by and get 'em. There's nine hens and a rooster. They lay pretty well. I ain't no use for 'em. I've got all the hens of my own I want to bother with.”

”All right,” said David. He looked blissful.

The farmer stared past him into the house. He spied the solitary umbrella. He grew facetious. ”Guess the umbrellas was all mended up where you come from if you've got down to one,” said he.

David nodded. It was tragically true, that guess.

”Well, our umbrella got turned last week,” said the farmer. ”I'll give you a job to start on. You can stay here as long as you want if you're careful about your matches.” Again he looked into the house. ”Guess some boys have been helpin' themselves to the furniture, most of it,” he observed. ”Guess my wife can spare ye another chair, and there's an old table out in the corn-house better than that one you've rigged up, and I guess she'll give ye some old bedding so you can be comfortable.

”Got any money?”

”A little.”

”I don't want any pay for things, and my wife won't; didn't mean that; was wonderin' whether ye had anything to buy vittles with.”

”Reckon I can manage till I get some work,” replied David, a trifle stiffly. He was a man who had never lived at another than the state's expense.