The boys soon stray over to where the crowd is, around the graves of the Heroes. But Martie gets down by a grave somewhat apart and prods the drifting gravel all up loose with an old case-knife. You would think she might be kneading bread there, the way she sways under her sun-bonnet and gloves—for her little boiled hands are in gloves now.
"I don't know how much good it does Delaroo spiking up his grave once a year," Neighbor always winds up. "It may not do him a blamed bit of good, I don't say it does. But I can see them. I see them from the roundhouse; it does me good. Hm?
"Maje?" he will add. "Why, I've got him over there at the house, wiping. I'm going to put him running the stationary if old John Boxer ever dies. When will he die? Blamed if I know. John is a pretty good man yet. I can't kill him, can I? Well, then, what's a matter with you?
"No, Maje don't talk as much as he used to; forgetting his passes more or less, too. Getting old like some more of us. He's kind of quit the money question; claims he don't understand it now as well as the boys do. But he can talk about Delaroo; he understands Delaroo pretty well—now."
The Operator's Story
DE MOLAY FOUR
Very able men have given their lives to the study of Monsoon's headlight; yet science, after no end of investigation, stands in its presence baffled.
The source of its illumination is believed to be understood. I say believed, because in a day when yesterday's beliefs are to-morrow's delusions I commit myself personally to no theory. Whether it is a thing living or dead; whether malign to mackerel or potent in its influence on imperfectly understood atmospheric phenomena, I do not know. I doubt whether anybody knows, except maybe Monsoon himself. I know only that on the West End, Monsoon's headlight, from every point of view, stands high, and that on one occasion it stood between Abe Monsoon and a frightful catastrophe.