"Hello! Hello!" he cried. "Blest if I didn't think you was a ghost! Ain't seen one of my own colour since I come. Gee! a fellow's tongue gets rusty for the lack of wagging. Come on in. Ain't got much to show, but what there is is yours. I'll have supper for you in two shakes. It certainly was white of you to come on to me for the night."
Ed seemed to see nothing strange in Sam's situation, nor was he in the least curious concerning the gossip of the country. This comforted Sam strangely. Ed was a little, trim, round-headed man, with a cropped thatch of white, and dancing brown eyes. Sixty years had in nowise impaired his vigour. He was an incorrigible optimist and a dreamer.
His long-pent tongue ran like a mechanical toy when the spring is released. He had a thousand schemes for the future, into all of which, as a matter of course, he immediately incorporated Sam. Sam had come to be his partner. That was settled without discussion. Sam, weary in body and mind, was content to let somebody run him.
"West of me, on the other side of the gully yonder, there's another handsome piece of land. Slopes down from the hills to the river-bank smooth as a lady's bosom! Not a stick on it, either; all ready to turn over. Now you take that and put up a shack on it, and we'll work the two pieces together with my tools.
"In the meantime, till you get a little ahead, you work for me for wages, see? I've got my crop in, all right—potatoes and barley; now I've got to build me a house. I need help with it. I'll pay you in grub."
"That certainly is decent of you," murmured Sam.
"Cut it out!" cried Ed. "A man has got to have a partner. Say, in a month already I'm near gibbering with the lonesomeness. It was a lucky stroke for both of us that brought you to my door."
They talked until late—that is to say, Ed talked. Sam warmed gratefully to his friendliness—it was genuine friendliness, that demanded nothing in return; but in the end the uninterrupted stream of talk confused his dulled faculties.
He could neither take it in properly nor answer intelligently. When Ed suggested turning in, therefore, he declined to share the tent.
"I like to lie by myself," he said.