An old man was driving the cows, crying out:
"St—boy, there! Go on there! Whay, boss!"
Will knew that hard-featured, wiry old man, now entering his second childhood and beginning to limp painfully. He had his hands full of hard clods which he threw impatiently at the lumbering animals.
"Good-evening, uncle!"
"I ain't y'r uncle, young man."
His dim eyes did not recognize the boy he had chased out of his plum patch years before.
"I don't know yeh, neither," he added.
"Oh, you will, later on. I'm from the East. I'm a sort of a relative to John Hannan."
"I want 'o know if y' be!" the old man exclaimed, peering closer.
"Yes. I'm just up from Rock River. John's harvesting, I s'pose?"