"Why, what's the matter with your identity?"
"I ain't got any; I'm a stranger; I don't know who my 'lations are."
"Don't know—who—your relations are! Why, what's your name?"
"Ralph, that's all; I ain't got any other name. They call me Ralph Buckley sometimes, 'cause I live with Uncle Billy; but he ain't my uncle, you know,—I only call him Uncle Billy 'cause I live with him, an'—an' he's good to me, that's all."
At the name "Ralph," coming so suddenly from the lad's lips, the man had started, turned pale, and then his face flushed deeply. He drew the boy down tenderly on the bench beside him, and said:—
"Tell me about yourself, Ralph; where do you say you live?"
"With Uncle Billy,—Bachelor Billy they call him; him that dumps at the head, pushes the cars out from the carriage an' dumps 'em; don't you know Billy Buckley?"
The man nodded assent and the boy went on:—
"He's been awful good to me, Uncle Billy has; you don't know how good he's been to me; but he ain't my uncle, he ain't no 'lation to me; I ain't got no 'lations 'at I know of; I wish't I had."
The lad looked wistfully out through the open window to the far line of hills with their summits veiled in a delicate mist of blue.