“You are Mr. Perkins?” Jim asked, ignoring the assumption of Lou’s relationship to him.
“That’s me!” The other glanced at the fresh bandage about the young man’s head which Lou had applied just before they started out, and inquired: “You git hurt, some ways?”
Jim explained briefly, and changed the subject with a haste which would have been significant to a less obtuse host.
“You seem to have a little of everything back here in the van, Mr. Perkins.”
48“Reckon I hev,” the other agreed complacently. “From a spool of thread to a pitchfork, and from a baby rattle to wax funeral wreaths, there ain’t nothin’ the folk hereabout hev use for that I don’t carry. The big ottermobile order trucks don’t hurt my business none; I ben workin’ up my trade around here fer twenty year.”
Mr. Perkins paused to draw a pipe and tobacco sack from his pocket, and Jim’s throat twitched. After filling the pipe the genial pedler offered the sack. “Hev some?”
Jim hesitated, and his face reddened, but at last he shook his head determinedly.
“Thanks; I–I don’t smoke.”
Lou, who had hunched about in her seat to stare at the assorted array of articles in the body of the van, turned and looked curiously at him. Surely that hard bulge in the coat upon which she had slept on the previous night had been the bowl of a pipe! The eyes which Jim had called “violet blue” narrowed for an instant in puzzled wonderment, then blurred as with swift understanding she glanced down at the new pink apron and 49stroked it softly. But Jim had gone on talking rather nervously.
“You don’t get much trade around here, do you? Not many houses in these mountains.”