“Pappy’s dead, too,” he said brokenly, when Mr. Polk stepped forward in surprise and alarm to meet him.
The boy sat down upon a log, dropping his books in a heap beside him, and his bent shoulders shook with sobs.
Mr. Polk comforted him with silent tenderness for a time, then gradually drew out the story of Jim Langly’s short illness of a week from a virulent fever and his burial two days before.
Together they went again next day to the cabin. 110 Mirandy had married a few weeks previous and she and her husband were beginning family life anew in the old place. She had been stirred somewhat by the events of the year, and looked with interest upon Mr. Polk and Steve, the latter showing plainly to her the touch of new surroundings, and when Mr. Polk told her he wanted to take the boy for his own and educate him, she said with a touch of bitterness:
“Tek him erlong; he won’t nuver know nothin’ here.”
So the two who had seemed bound from the first by close ties went away together, Steve to spend the summer at the school, where a few were always accommodated during the vacation, and Mr. Polk to wind up his business affairs in the South preparatory to a return to New York. He had formerly been associated with an uncle having large railroad interests in the East, who had often urged his return. He now proposed to do so, taking advantage of opportunities still open to him. These had been thrown away upon the breaking of his engagement with Grace Trowbridge, six years before, to take a position with a southern railroad and wander restlessly among new scenes.