In that fact, curiously enough, Judith found something to reconcile her with the lad's failure to consummate the task she had set for him. He might spend his time with worse men, she told herself, than with Brent Good. But she saw to it that the latter's hours were not wholly spent with Roger.
As the stranger grew in strength, she procured him a pair of crutches, and with their aid, and that of the motor-car, they were able to take little jaunts off into the surrounding country-side. On these trips it almost brought the tears to her eyes to perceive the exquisite pleasure the sight and the smell of growing things seemed to give him.
"I've never known anyone who enjoyed the country as much as you do," she said one day, after he had waxed particularly enthusiastic over a view from one of the near-by hills.
"I've never seen anything but city," he answered. Then he added very simply: "I was pretty nearly a man before I saw my first cow." His brow clouded reminiscently, and although she ached to draw him out on his past, his evident unwillingness to speak of it further made her hesitate.
Only once did he make any other reference to his childhood. She had been saying how difficult it was to make people spell her name correctly.
"You don't have any difficulty there," she added.
"Not much," he admitted. "Queer name, isn't it," he said after a pause. "Queer the way I got it, too. Like to hear about that?"
She smiled at the innocence of the query, but forced herself merely to nod her head.
He smiled, and a curious expression of tenderness came into his eyes.
"You see, I was born without a name. That is, I never had any parents—or never knew who they were, which amounts to the same thing. I was just one of those nameless little scraps of a city's flotsam that get found on people's doorsteps every now and then. That is, I think I was. I guess I was about five when I began to be conscious of self. As far back as I can remember, I was selling chewing gum and getting food by begging from restaurants at night and sleeping in doorways and packing-boxes. Then I sold newspapers, and got prosperous, and when I was about ten—I guess it was ten—you see, I don't really know even how old I am—I got into the hands, somehow or other, of an old Jew rags-old-iron man." He was silent for a moment, and the expression of tenderness spread over his whole face. "He was a good sort—that old kike. He fed me as well as he could—which wasn't very well—and taught me to write and figure and read—good books too. I knew the Public Library better than you know your own house. He didn't just make me read books—he made me like them. He'd come from Russia where he couldn't get them, and he knew what books were. What your Church and brother and friends and home are to you, books were to old Zbysko. He taught me to love them, too. He did lots of things for me when doing things wasn't easy. And he gave me the only name I ever had."