“Leave it for him in your will, then, my boy,” said Uncle Dick. “He wants nothing that will encumber him, and your watch would only be a nuisance when the water had soaked in. Leave it to him in your will.”
“Yes,” said Uncle Joseph, “but I should have liked to give him something else to make him always remember me when he’s away.”
“Why, Uncle Joe,” I cried, with a curious choking feeling coming in my throat, “you don’t think I could ever forget you?”
“No, my boy, no,” he said, shaking my hand very heartily, and then laying the watch down, as if he didn’t care to take to it again.
“It’s very kind of you, Joe,” said Uncle Dick, for he saw how his brother-in-law seemed hurt; “but don’t you see, my dear boy, we are going to lead the roughest of rough lives, and what we carry at a time when every extra ounce will be a trouble, must be the barest necessities. I’ve often had to leave behind valuable things, solely because I could not carry them. Here, I tell you what: you go into the city to-morrow, and buy him one of the best, and biggest, and strongest jack-knives you can find; one of those with a steel loop so that it can hang handily from a lanyard, ready for any purpose from cutting his breakfast to hacking a way through the canes, or skinning a wild beast. You could not give him a better present than that.”
“To be sure,” cried Uncle Joe, brightening up, “I will. What kind of a handle would you like, Nat?”
“Never mind the handle, Joe; look to the blade. Let it be a thoroughly good bit of stuff, the best you can buy.”
“To be sure. Yes; to be sure,” cried Uncle Joe; and taking up his watch he lowered it so carelessly into its place that it missed the fob, and ran down the right leg of his trousers into his Wellington boot.
I had to turn boot-jack and drag the boot off before the watch could be recovered, Uncle Dick laughing heartily the while.
And now this was the knife the good, amiable old fellow had got for me, and certainly it was one that would stand me in good stead for any length of time.