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"Couldn't be partickler then. Had to lay down somewhar. Remember, after I'd been here an hour or two, some big yeller animal with yellerish-green eyes come starin' in at me through the bushes, angry and reproachful-like. Said to me plain as day: 'You've took my house. Git out. Felt like a robber, I did, slippin' into another man's bed while he wuz away, an' takin' up all the room.
Why, he ain't even wise to what you want him to do it for. All he knows is that it's crooked, and he renigs on a general proposition. And, say, when a man's as straight as that, with the workhouse starin' him in the face, he's too valuable to lose, ain't he?" "Wha-a-at?" gurgles Old Hickory.
There was Jonadab settin' up and lookin' wild. "'What in the world? says I. "'Oh! Ugh! My soul! says he. "'Your soul, hey? says I. 'Is that all? I thought mebbe you'd lost a quarter. "'Barzilla, he says, comin' to and starin' at me solemn, 'Barzilla, I've had a dream a wonderful dream. "'Well, I says, 'I ain't surprised.
But all the time he kept lookin' back and starin' and, as we got nigher, and I could see him plainer through the dust, he looked more and more familiar. 'Twas somebody I knew. "Then I heard a little grunt, or gasp, from Cap'n Jonadab. He was leanin' for'ard over the wheel, starin' at the man in the other auto.
The vision, however, was too entrancing to be shut out; she saw herself distinctly driving in an open carriage, with a negro nurse holding the baby all in laces in front, "jest too cute for anythin'," and George beside her, and every one in Fifth Avenue starin'.
"Don't happen to have a lock of her hair with you?" says I, grinnin'. "Alas, no!" says he. "She favored me with no such mark of her esteem." "Was it kind of ginger-colored," says I, "and done in a braid round her head?" "Why er I believe it was," says he. "And didn't she have sort of droopy shoulders," I goes on, "and a trick of starin' vague, with her mouth part way open?"
"There she set," declared Gabriel, "on a box, hugging a broken- nosed doll baby up to her and starin' at me and Shavin's as if we was some kind of curiosities, as you might say. Well, one of us was; eh? Haw, haw! She didn't say a word and Shavin's he never said nothin' and I felt as if I was preaching in a deef and dumb asylum.
"Do do you suppose I could do that, too?" he asks. "Why not?" says I. "You don't stand to lose anything, do you, even if they do chatter? If I was you I'd act natural and tell 'em to go hang." "You would?" says he, still starin'. "To the limit," says I. "What's the fun of livin' if you can't?" "Say, young man," says Garvey, slappin' his knee. "That listens sensible to me. Blamed if I don't.
While the three of us are talkin' over J. Bayard's proposition she sits at one side, starin' blank and absentminded, as if this was somethin' that don't concern her at all. It ain't a long debate, either. Hackett Wells seems satisfied with most any arrangement we want to make. He's a meek, broken old sport, grateful for anything that comes his way.
"Know anything about industrial welfare work, young man?" demands Old Hickory of him. "I've seen it mentioned in magazine articles," says Brink, "but that's about all. Don't think I ever read one." "So much the better," says Mr. Ellins. "You'll have a chance to start in fresh, with your own ideas." "I I beg pardon?" says Brink, starin' puzzled.
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