“I don’t understand how any man could do such a thing, Bill. What was the feller’s name?”
“His name was Watts, Jim Watts,” answered Paisley, swinging the kettle off the fire. “I ain’t thinkin’ as I would know him again, now, even if I happened to run across him. This all happened sixteen years ago.”
He followed Boy outside and the two walked over to an out-house standing in a grove of beeches.
“I haven’t had much use for this fork since the wolves got poor old Mooley last winter,” said Paisley. “Guess I’ll be gettin’ another milk-cow soon, ’cause it’s quite a bother havin’ to go to Peeler’s for my butter.”
“I was goin’ to ask you about Peeler,” said Boy. “I wish, Bill, you’d see him and persuade him not to sell one stick of his timber to Hallibut or his agents. Jim’s an easygoin’ sort, who might be led off quite easy, and it’s up to us to see that he isn’t.”
“I’ll see him—leave that to me,” Paisley replied. “And I’ll see the rest of the Bushwhackers, even old man Broadcrook and his sons, who haven’t any particular use for me, somehow.”
“I guess what the Broadcrooks do won’t matter much,” laughed Boy. “They hate everybody and everything it seems. I don’t know why.”
He picked up the fork and turned toward the path. A west wind had piled up a bank of long drab clouds above the wood. The wind was damp, and from the distance came the dull boom of the waters beating upon the mucky shore of the bay.
A few yards down the path Boy halted.
“Say, Bill, dad was tellin’ me about the talk you had with the teacher. I wish you’d get better acquainted with him and make him see that his place isn’t here.”