"That was pretty near, though," said John, laughing.
"Wa'al," said David, "mebbe Prov'dence might 'a' had some other plan fer stoppin' me 'fore I smashed the hull rig, if I hadn't run into the mil'nery shop, but as it was, that fetched me to a stan'still, an' I never started to run agin."
They drove on for a few minutes in silence, which John broke at last by saying, "I have been wondering how you got on after your wife died and left you with a little child."
"That was where Mis' Jones come in," said David. "Of course I got the best nurse I could, an' Mis' Jones 'd run in two three times ev'ry day an' see 't things was goin' on as right 's they could; but it come on that I had to be away f'm home a good deal, an' fin'ly, come fall, I got the Joneses to move into a bigger house, where I could have a room, an' fixed it up with Mis' Jones to take charge o' the little feller right along. She hadn't but one child, a girl of about thirteen, an' had lost two little ones, an' so between havin' took to my little mite of a thing f'm the fust, an' my makin' it wuth her while, she was willin', an' we went on that way till—the' wa'n't no further occasion fur 's he was concerned, though I lived with them a spell longer when I was at home, which wa'n't very often, an' after he died I was gone fer a good while. But before that time, when I was at home, I had him with me all the time I could manage. With good care he'd growed up nice an' bright, an' as big as the average, an' smarter 'n a steel trap. He liked bein' with me better 'n anybody else, and when I c'd manage to have him I couldn't bear to have him out o' my sight. Wa'al, as I told you, he got to be most seven year old. I'd had to go out to Chicago, an' one day I got a telegraph sayin' he was putty sick—an' I took the fust train East. It was 'long in March, an' we had a breakdown, an' run into an awful snowstorm, an' one thing another, an' I lost twelve or fifteen hours. It seemed to me that them two days was longer 'n my hull life, but I fin'ly did git home about nine o'clock in the mornin'. When I got to the house Mis' Jones was on the lookout fer me, an' the door opened as I run up the stoop, an' I see by her face that I was too late. 'Oh, David, David!' she says (she'd never called me David before), puttin' her hands on my shoulders.
"'When?' I says.
"''Bout midnight,' she says.
"'Did he suffer much?' I says.
"'No,' she says, 'I don't think so; but he was out of his head most of the time after the fust day, an' I guess all the time the last twenty-four hours.'
"'Do you think he'd 'a' knowed me?' I says. 'Did he say anythin'?' an' at that," said David, "she looked at me. She wa'n't cryin' when I come in, though she had ben; but at that her face all broke up. 'I don't know,' she says. 'He kept sayin' things, an' 'bout all we could understand was "Daddy, daddy,"' an' then she throwed her apern over her face, an'——"
David tipped his hat a little farther over his eyes, though, like many if not most "horsey" men, he usually wore it rather far down, and leaning over, twirled the whip in the socket between his two fingers and thumb. John studied the stitched ornamentation of the dashboard until the reins were pushed into his hands. But it was not for long. David straightened himself, and, without turning his head, resumed them as if that were a matter of course.