He dropped on his knees beside the bed, looking at her with the eyes of the boy she had borne. “Bless me, Mother,” he said unsteadily, all the fun gone out of his face. “I—need it—to keep decent.”
The last three words were under his breath, but she heard the others and laid her hand on the red head with a tremulous soft word or two which he could barely catch.
In a minute he had risen, his cheek flushed high, and was gripping his father's hand. “You, too, Dad,” he begged. “I'm only Red this morning—going back into the world.”
His father's hand and voice shook as he administered the little ceremony, used only once before in his son's life—when at fourteen he first went away to school. Few grown men would have asked for it again, he felt that. Coming from Red he was sure the request meant more than they could know.
Then the professional gentleman whom the world knew—the world which was not acquainted with Red Pepper Burns—and the professional lady who was his assistant went decorously away into the early June morning. Zeke was grinning to himself as he saw them step aboard the train.
“Looks mighty fine in them clipper-built city clothes, Red does,” he reflected. “If that there young woman chose to give him away, now but I kind of guess she won't—under the circumstances!”
CHAPTER III. IN WHICH HE ASSUMES A RESPONSIBILITY
“Red, the new car is here. Come and look her over.”
It was Burns's neighbour on the other side, James Macauley, Junior. R. P. Burns laid down his saw, with which in the late June twilight he had been doing vigorous work at a small woodpile behind the house. He stood up straight, throwing back his shoulders to take the kink out of them.