"Wasn't there—wasn't there a funer'l for somebody today?" he asked mysteriously. "I can whip any man in Jackson County. My pa said so. We've—we've done it—we'd done it then if he—if he hadn't pitched on to me. He done that."
A sudden terror caught Aurora Lane's soul as she realized that the addled mind of this half-wit was more than to a usual extent gone wrong. She feared him with every fiber in her body. She stepped aside quickly as he made a loutish thrust at her arm, as though to pinch her.
"I'll pinch you!" said he. "You know why?"
"No, don't! Go away!" she exclaimed, and pushed out her hand.
"'Cause—'cause I like you!" said the half-wit. "That's why!"
Then for a time those who crowded up at the rear heard little, until he resumed.
"Oh, I know a lot more I could tell you some time. I ain't—I ain't been home at all. I'm just looking round. Ain't no one can stop me. There was some sort of—of funer'l, wasn't there, in town today? Me and my father, we can lick ary two men in Jackson County."
He would have made some sort of rude approach once more. But now even the tardy chivalry of these men of Spring Valley came back to them. Two or three stepped in between him and Aurora Lane. "Here, you," said the voice of one, "that'll do! Quit it now."
Aurora Lane did not have time to thank her rescuers. The painful situation was relieved suddenly. Just as they were turning at the corner of the public square there hurried up a man, an oldish man, untidy even in his Sunday garb, half running toward the group which now he saw approaching.
"Hello, Pa," exclaimed the half-wit, and laughed long and loud. "I didn't come home," said he. "I'm—I'm out!"