She learned that he had read—more than she would have thought, from his speech—and that he had profited thereby.
“Books give the writer’s opinion of things,” he said. “If you read a thoughtful book, you either agree with the writer, or you don’t, accordin’ to your nature an’ understandin’. None of them get things exactly right, I reckon, for no man can know everything. He’s got to fall down, somewhere. An’ so, when you read a book, you’ve got to do a heap of thinkin’ on your own hook, or else you’ll get mistaken ideas an’ go to gettin’ things mixed up. I like to do my own thinkin’.”
“Are you always right?”
“Bless you, ma’am, no. I’m scarcely ever right. I’ll get to believin’ a thing, an’ then along will come somethin’ else, an’ I’ll have to start all over again. Or, I’ll talk to somebody, an’ find that they’ve got a better way of lookin’ at a thing. I reckon that’s natural.”
They did not go out to shoot again. Instead, they went out on the porch, and there, sitting in the shade, they talked until the sun began to swim low in the sky.
At last he got up, grinning.
“I’ve done a heap of loafin’ today, ma’am. But I’ve certainly enjoyed myself, talkin’ to you. But if you ain’t goin’ to try to hit the target any more, I reckon I’ll be ridin’ back to the outfit.”
She got up, too, and held out her hand to him. “Thank you,” she said. “You have made the day very short for me. It would have been lonesome here, without aunt and uncle.”
“I saw them goin’,” he informed her.
“And,” she continued, smiling, “I am going to ask you to come again, very soon, to teach me more about shooting.”