“Sho! That’s odd! But everything is in this topsy-turvy world. I’ll be glad to be out of it. I never had no luck, Billy, an’ you know it. This yeah ’s a piece with all the rest. To have this boy, or his spook, rise up this-a-way, an’ go to sleep, standin’. Well, Billy, it cayn’t be helped. The trouble is I was born with a heart, and it’s always gettin’ us into trouble. It’s that old heart o’ mine makes me feel I cayn’t just shove this creatur’ off an’ leave him to his own deserts. Ah! hum.”
In his mournful tones the Colonel thus addressed the intelligent beast, who responded with a sympathetic bray; but he stood rigidly still while his master loosened and slipped from his back the blanket strapped there and spread it on the grassy bank beside the road. Then, as if Gerald had been a little child, the Colonel carried him to the blanket, laid and covered him in it. He even took off his own coat and made a pillow of it for Gerald’s head. Next, he ordered: “Billy, lie down!” and having been obeyed, calmly composed himself for another nap upon the back of “his only friend.”
The night passed. Gerald slept as he had never done in all his life. The healthful fatigue of his tramp across lots and the pure outdoor air did more for him than all the medicine he’d swallowed. When he awoke the sun was shining in his eyes and Billy was braying an injunction to get up, while the Colonel sat on the roadside pensively reading out of his little brown book.
“My! You’re an early student!” cried Gerald, who had lain still for a moment after waking, trying to understand the situation. “Must be an interesting story, that!”
“Story? Life’s too short—or too long—to waste on stories, young man. This is Marcus Aurelius, the sage of all the ages. Now, talk, tell, how come, et cetery. For me, I’m seekin’ a lost wallet, and I don’t expect to find it. I shan’t. Course. But I’m on the road to that pickaninny and if I cayn’t squeeze the wallet out of his clo’es I’ll squeeze the truth out of his insides, what he done with it. The idee! ’T one measly little nigger could force me to break the vow of years an’ come here, where I never meant to set foot ’s long as I lived. Ah! hum.”
“Eh, what? Lost wallet? Why, I know something about that. Jim Barlow had it. He picked it up.”
“Where is he? Quick, young man! That wallet’s mighty precious and it’s mine—mine, I tell you! Mine by the right of findin’ and preservin’. Where’s he at, quick?”
The Colonel had never shown such excitement, nor such depths of depression as when Gerald answered:
“I don’t know. I haven’t the least idea.”
“Ah! hum. Course you haven’t. I didn’t suppose you had. They couldn’t be any such good luck in this world. ‘Don’t know’! Course not. Don’t reckon you know anything.”