“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.
“Don't want ye to be too short, that's all,” said the other, a little apologetically.
“I shall be all right. There are corn and potatoes in the garden, anyway.”
“So there be, and one of them hens had better be eat. She don't lay. She'll need a good deal of b'ilin'. You can have all the wood you want to pick up, but I don't want any cut. You mind that or there'll be trouble.”
“Mind ye don't. Folks call me an easy mark, and I guess myself I am easy up to a certain point, and cuttin' my wood is one of them points. Roof didn't leak in that shower last night, did it?”
“Didn't s'pose it would. The other feller was handy, and he kept tinkerin' all the time. Well, I'll be goin'; you can stay here and welcome if you're careful about matches and don't cut my wood. Come over for them hens any time you want to. I'll let my hired man drive you back in the wagon.”
“Much obliged,” said David, with an inflection that was almost tearful.
“You're welcome,” said the other, and ambled away.
The new David Anderson, the good old grandfather revived in his unfortunate, perhaps graceless grandson, reseated himself on the door-step and watched the bulky, receding figure of his visitor through a pleasant blur of tears, which made the broad, rounded shoulders and the halting columns of legs dance. This David Anderson had almost forgotten that there was unpaid kindness in the whole world, and it seemed to him as if he had seen angels walking up and down. He sat for a while doing nothing except realizing happiness of the present and of the future. He gazed at the green spread of forest boughs, and saw in pleased anticipation their red and gold tints of autumn; also in pleased anticipation their snowy and icy mail of winter, and himself, the unmailed, defenseless human creature, housed and sheltered, sitting before his own fire. This last happy outlook aroused him. If all this was to be, he must be up and doing. He got up, entered the house, and examined the broken umbrella which was his sole stock in trade. David was a handy man. He at once knew that he was capable of putting it in perfect repair. Strangely enough, for his sense of right and wrong was not blunted, he had no compunction whatever in keeping this umbrella, although he was reasonably certain that it belonged to one of the two young girls who had been so terrified by him. He had a conviction that this monstrous terror of theirs, which had hurt him more than many apparently crueler things, made them quits.