“I suppose now,” said the apparent peddler, softly, “I suppose now they're pretty cosy. I suppose they say prayers.”
“You bet.”.
“You mean that they do, Jack. I suppose,” he went on dreamily, “I suppose the old lady has white hair and knits stockings.”
“She does that,” said Jack, enthusiastically, “and pincushions and mats.”
“And pincushions and mats. That's so.”
The lowing of cattle came up to them from hidden meadows below; for the afternoon was drawing near its close and the cattle were uneasy. The chimney and roof of a farmhouse were just visible through a break in the sloping woods. The smoke that mounted from the chimney seemed to linger lovingly over the roof, like a symbol of peace, blessing the hearth from which it came. The sentimental outcast puffed his excellent cigar meditatively, now and again taking it out to remark, “Pincushions and mats!” indicating the constancy of his thoughts.
The serious boy motioned in the direction of Salem. “I think I'll stay there,” he said. “It's better.”
“Reckon I know how you feel, Jack,—know how you feel. Give me my lowly thatched cottage, and that sort of thing.” After a longer silence still, he sat up and threw away his cigar. “Well, Jack, if you see your way—a—if I were you, Jack,” he said slowly, “I wouldn't go half and half; I'd go the whole bill. I'd turn on the hose and inquire for the ten commandments, that's what I'd do.” He came and leaned lazily on the carriage wheel. “That isn't very plain. It's like this. You don't exactly abolish the old man; you just imagine him comfortably buried; that's it, comfortably buried, with an epitaph,—flourishy, Jack, flourishy, stating”—here his eyes roamed meditatively along Billy's well-padded spine—“stating, in a general way, that he made a point of polish.”
The serious boy's lip trembled slightly. He seemed to be seeking some method of expression. Finally he said: “I'll trade knives with you, dad. It's six blades”; and the two silently exchanged knives.
Then Billy, the gray horse, plodded down the hill through the woods, and the apparent peddler plodded up. At one turn in the road can be seen the white houses of Salem across the valley; and here he paused, leaning on the single pole that guarded the edge. After a time he roused himself again, swung his pack to his shoulder, and disappeared over the crest of the hill whistling.