"I simply have to, Hiram. Ever since I was knee-high to you, until a very few years ago, I lived with one or more tent saloons within a stone's throw of our camp. Morals are, after all, a local conception, Hiram. What is thought to be wrong in one country will be the accepted practice just over the border line. It's all in the viewpoint. I not only go into saloons with men friends of mine, but sometimes I play poker or roulette or faro just to please them. And listen: Never in all my rough-and-ready life in railroad camps have I been insulted by regular stiffs, as the laborers are called. Certain outsiders have misunderstood my freedom from conventionality on several occasions, but always to their sorrow. Understand, I don't care the snap of my finger for beer, or to gamble; but these things will be expected of me now as in the old days when I knew no better, and I dare not assume a superior attitude toward people who have known me since I was found, a mere baby, half buried by the desert sands."
She told Hiram about her childhood then, and that she knew nothing of her parents, not even her own true name. Hiram gave ear eagerly to her story, and thought he understood her situation.
"I couldn't think anything wrong of you, ma'am,' he told her gently as she finished.
"And don't call me 'ma'am,' please," she corrected with a friendly smile. "And that reminds me that I made us wander from the subject of Twitter-or-Tweet. You were telling me about him when I interrupted. What is he? He's not a common tramp—a stiff."
"He says he's a promoter and capitalist," Hiram repeated.
"Of course he's talking nonsense."
Hiram then told of Mr. Tweet's card, which promulgated his operations as a salesman of banana lands, and of the stock he claimed to own in the new ditch digger.
"I thought perhaps he was some sort of a book agent," said the girl, laughing.
"I don't know much about people," Hiram confessed with naïve simplicity. "I can't judge folks very well—some folks, anyway."
"I'm afraid he's a wind bag," decided Jo. "Well, we'll befriend him to the grade, anyway, and I guess that then he'll be obliged to shift for himself. If freight were moving freely, and every day, I might manage to use him—but that won't be the case at first. So we'll have to bid him good-by at the camps. I have an idea he can take care of himself."