"Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily.
"No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy—a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat."
"He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on
board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it."
Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on:
"I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man—God prosper his soul!—saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!"
For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw
up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil.
"Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked.
"Why?" cried Sandy, too miserable to hold anything back. "Because I saw the name of the place on your bag at the pier. I came here for the chance of seeing you again, of knowing for sure there was something good and beautiful in the world to offset all the bad I'd seen. Every page I've learned has been for you, every wrong thought I've put out of me mind has been to make more room for you. I don't even ask ye to be my friend; I only ask to be yours, to see ye sometime, to talk to you, and to keep ye first in my heart and to serve ye to the end."