“You cried,” said Maria, “I know he did, father, he’s most crying now.”
“I couldn’t help it May, and I guess you couldn’t have helped it neither, if you had only seen how pitiful he looked, and how sad his voice sounded.”
“What did he say when he found you cried?”
“He put his arm round me and said ‘don’t cry Bertie,’ and said he was sorry he made me feel bad. I tell you, all of you, I love him, I know he’s good as he can be, and I knew he was from the first, ‘cause I saw Frank loved him. Frank knows I tell you.”
“I suppose Frank will love anybody who’ll feed and make much of him.”
“No he won’t father, because there was Mike Walsh who stole your coat, and ran off after you overpaid him, would feed him and try every way to get the right side of him, but he couldn’t, and Frank would bite him whenever he could get a chance; and you know father he couldn’t catch him in the pasture.”
“Did he talk with you on the way home?”
“Never opened his mouth only to say ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ or ‘don’t know.’”
“I shouldn’t think you’d like him so much as though he talked more, I shouldn’t,” said Maria.
“Who wants anybody all the time a gabbing just like Matt Saunders when she comes here to help mother draw a web into the loom, her tongue going all the time like a pullet when she’s laid her first egg. I’ve heard mother say it was just like the letting out of water, but when James says anything there’s some sense to it,” retorted Bertie resolved in the enthusiasm of friendship that no fault should be found in his protégé.