"'Baby-girl,' I says, 'there ain't a bird 'round here that ain't got a mate; and that's what makes 'em so happy. I ain't got nobody but you, Ruby—don't go 'way from me, child—stay with me.' And I told her. She looked at me startled like, same as a deer does when he hears a dog bark; then she jumped up and begin to cry.
"'Oh, Jim—Jim—dear Jim!' she says. 'I love you so, and you've been so good to me all my life, but don't—don't never say that to me again. That can never be—not so long as we live.' And she dropped down on the ground and cried till she couldn't git her breath. Then she got up and kissed my hands and went home, leavin' me there alone feelin' like I'd fell off a scaffoldin' and struck the sidewalk."
Jim arose from his seat and began pacing the platform again. I had not spoken a word through his long story.
"Jim," I began, "how old are you?"
"Forty-two," he said, in a patient, listless way.
"More than twice as old as Ruby, aren't you? Old enough, really, to be her father. You love her, don't you—love her for herself—not yourself? You wouldn't let anything hurt her if you could help it. You were right when you said every bird has its mate. That's true, Jim, and the way it ought to be—but they mate with this year's birds, not last year's. When men get as old as you and I we forget these things sometimes, but they are true all the same."
"I know it," he broke out, "I know it; you can't tell me nothin' about it. I thought it all over more'n a hundred times lately. I could bite my tongue off for sayin' what I did to her, and spilin' her visit, but it's done now and I can't help it, and I've got to stay here and bear it."
"No, Jim, don't stay here. So long as she sees you around here she'll be unhappy, and you will be equally miserable. Go away from here; find work somewhere else."
"When?" he said, quietly.
"Now; right away; before she comes back at Christmas."