Abe led sullenly. He was deep in thought. The problem of beginning life again was facing him, beginning life with one pair of ancient overalls, a shirt, a jack-knife, shoes that had seen better days, and, in prospect, the handsome sum of one dollar. There was no question of his beginning life at McGregor. There confronted him, indeed, a difficulty, apparently insurmountable, in showing his face there at all. Abe figured to himself an irate boat-owner waiting at the landing for the person who had had the boldness to take away his skiff. How, then, he reflected, could he collect his dollar, get Clarence back, and escape unobserved. One plan would be to land below McGregor and let Clarence go the rest of the way alone. But even that plan had its risks. Doubtless, there were boatmen on the river even now in quest of the missing craft. Much thinking was alien to Abe’s manner of life; continuous thinking, impossible. He left the solution in the lap of the gods, therefore, and started conversation with his companion. With Abe, language was not the expression of, but rather an escape from, thought. So he gabbled away, going from one subject to another with an inconsequence which bridged tremendous gulfs of subject.
In an unhappy moment, he became foul in his expression. He did not, by reason of being in the advance, see the blush that mantled his companion’s face.
“Suppose you change the subject,” said Clarence, giving, as he spoke, Master Abe a hearty shove with both arms.
If dropping the subject entirely is equivalent to changing it, Abe was perfectly obedient. At any rate, he certainly changed his base; and before the words were well out of Clarence’s mouth, Abe was sliding down the steep incline at a rate which would have outdistanced the average runner. He went full thirty feet before a friendly stump brought him to a pause.
“Look here,” cried Abe, remaining seated where he had come to a stop, and rubbing himself; “What did you mean?”
“You aren’t hurt, are you?” enquired the sailor-clad youth, drawing near and really looking sympathetic.
“Hurt!” echoed Abe, rising as he spoke “I’m sore; and,” he continued as he craned his neck to see what had happened to his clothes, “my overalls is torn.”
“So they is,” assented Clarence, his love of mischief once more in the ascendant. “How much are those overalls worth?”
“I paid eighty-five cents for them.”
“Very good. I’ll give you two dollars instead of one. Is that all right?”