For a few moments they all chatted happily, and then Jerry said, "Erfore I fergits hit, us wants ye ter stay up hyar this trip. Ther loft-room air yourn, an' leetle Rose hes fixed hit up special fer ye—curtains et ther window, er rag rug on ther floor, an' ther Lawd knows what else."
"Do you really want me to?" cried the newcomer in pleased surprise.
"Of course we really want you," answered the happy girl.
"Then, by Jove, I'll be only too glad to, although I had not thought of such a thing."
"I allows thet yo' kin regard this hyar cabin as yo'r home whenever yo're hyarerbouts, an' we wants fer ye ter feel thet hit air home," said the giant with simple courtesy.
"I can't tell you how much that means to me—real hospitality like that," began Donald, hesitatingly. "You know I ... I haven't any real home and haven't had ... since mother left us, and my sister was married. Of course," he added hastily, "my rooms are pleasant and comfortable, and all that; but they're only a place to work, sleep and eat in, and there isn't any of that indefinably vital something—a soul, perhaps—which makes a real home a sacred spot, no matter how big or how small it may be. I get frightfully lonely there, sometimes."
"I didn't allow thet a man could git lonely in the city," replied Jerry.
"'In the city?' My dear man, one can be twice as lonely there as any place I know of. The very life makes for shut-inness, in mind as well as body, and there are thousands and thousands of men, and women, too, there, who know scarcely a soul outside of the very few with whom their daily work brings them in contact; and they are mere acquaintances, not friends. They see only the four walls of the rooms in which they work and sleep, and the walled-in streets between the two.
"These very streets seem to me to typify the city's life—so hard, so filled with hurrying, jostling crowds of people, all equally intent upon their own narrow, selfish affairs, people who would think a fellow crazy if he spoke to them pleasantly, as you did to me the first time I saw you. There are thousands who never even lift their eyes to the narrow strips of sky between the tall buildings. They—and they only—know what real loneliness is.
"Of course I'm not one of those unfortunates," he added quickly, "for I have many friends, and am making new ones daily; but that is the atmosphere I live in fifty weeks of the year. Do you wonder that it gets on my nerves at times, and that I long to run away from it all and get into the big, open spaces in the warm heart of friendly nature?