Nicholson stared in amazement.
“Your boy!” he exclaimed. “Why, look here, Pickett! You’re not a son of the owner of Pickett’s Gap, are you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Give me your hand. You’ve got a father and a son to be proud of. Why, that old man will move heaven and earth to defend and preserve what he considers his rights. I looked into the muzzle of his double-barrelled shot-gun one day; well, it was lucky the sheriff came when he did, or I’d have been picking bird-shot No. 2 out of my anatomy to this day. And I don’t blame him a bit—not a bit. I’d have done the same thing in his place. But that boy, Pickett, why that boy’s a hero. I wondered what you carried him out of the court room so tenderly for when he fainted. Where is he? Did he get over his illness? No wonder he went to pieces, poor fellow!”
When Nicholson once started in to talk, it was of no use trying to interrupt him till he was through.
“Yes,” replied Charlie, sadly, “he recovered; he went home with his grandfather.”
Nicholson stood for a moment in deep thought.
“Look here, Pickett!” he exclaimed finally. “I don’t want to uncover any family secrets; but what I can’t make out is why in the world, if you own such a boy as that, he don’t know it. And, why in all the worlds, if you’ve got a right to have the company of a human being, with his intelligence and conscience and grit and grace, you don’t avail yourself of it.”
“Well, Nicholson, it’s a long story. I can’t tell it to you now. You wouldn’t understand it if I did. But I hope some day to have him with me. How soon or how far away that day may be, I cannot tell. At any rate, it will take a thousand unkind remarks from you, hereafter, to overbalance the kind things you’ve said about me and mine in the last twenty minutes.”