“Nothing, thank you, my son.”
Roland thereupon turned stableward, and his old friend walked with him, smiling grimly.
“I s’pose you don’t never forget to ask that question, do ye?”
“Not often. I don’t like to let my mother do any lifting if I can help it, and now that Bonny is away so much she might if I didn’t look after her.”
“H’m-m! That’s right. An’ I reckon you’re a purty level-headed kind of a chap, after all, if I do take you to do now and again; yes, yes, I do. So you hain’t no notion who gave you the wagon?”
“Unfortunately, no. Though, despite the neatly written note which declares to the contrary, and my mother’s faith in its assertion, I think it must be one or other of the kindly Brooks. You see we know nobody else hereabout who would trouble to be kind to us.”
“Hey, diddle diddle! You don’t, hey? Well, I guess them folks hain’t got a monopoly of all the goodness there is in the world!”
“That sounds as if you resented my thinking it was a gift from them!”
“An’ I do, lad, I do. I hain’t a claimin’ no superiority to your ma’s jedgment when I say that she is old enough to look further than one family afore she gives up findin’ out.”
“Well, we mustn’t quarrel over it, anyway. Somebody, I do not know who, has been very, very generous to us; and I am too grateful and happy to question very deeply into the matter now. It is sure to come out, sooner or later. So I think, and I shall watch as sharply as I can for indications of the giver. Hello, Nan! You’re in luck to-day! You’re to try a brand-new business!”