That was the best we could get out of him, though Mark tried him a couple of times more.
“Did they stop and ask you about anything?” Mark asked.
“Asked me about two boys.”
“What did you t-t-tell ’em?”
“Young feller,” says the man, scowling like anything with his left eyebrow, “I judged it best not to state anythin’ definite. When folks is huntin’ for folks it may be friendly and it may be unfriendly. You might be doin’ a favor, or you might not, as the case may be. Them men looked perty anxious, so, thinks I, this here is a time for thinkin’ and meditation. Likewise it’s a time for bein’ sure you don’t do nothin’ about somethin’ you don’t know nothin’ about. So I was what the newspapers calls non-committal. Big word, eh? I’ve remembered her nigh two years, and hain’t never had no use for her before. Pays to save them words, though. Time always comes for ’em.”
“What did you say to them?”
“Says I, ‘Gentlemen and strangers, I hain’t been app’inted watchman of this here river, though I do notice it consid’able. But I got my weaknesses, gentlemen, and one of ’em is for sleep. I jest woke up, so to speak. Before I done so there might ’a’ been a Barnum’s Circus parade a-floatin’ down, though it would ’a’ been the first time sich a thing’s happened in ten year.’ That’s all I said to ’em, young fellers, and they went away in more of a hurry than ever.”
“If you w-w-wouldn’t tell them anything,” says Mark, suspicious-like, “what makes you tell us?”
The man didn’t say a thing for a minnit, and his face got to look the same on both sides. It was a kind of wistful look, I guess. “When it’s boys,” he says, very slow, “all rules don’t work. Boys is— I like boys,” says he, and then began again to scowl with one side and look like he didn’t care with the other. What he said and the way he said it made you pretty sorry for him, and you didn’t know why.
We said “Thank you” to him and got back into our canoe. He stood on the bank, looking after us till we went around the bend, and for some reason or other I couldn’t get him out of my mind for a long time. I haven’t got him out yet. He was a nice man, and he was lonesome for boys. It was too bad he didn’t have any of his own.