"Don't bother," I called after him. "It will be all in when I get through with it."
But he never cracked a smile. I presume there were refinements of slang with which he was not familiar.
As to the others, however, I find as I run the noble army over in retrospect that many have won their way into my affections, and none are remembered save pleasantly. Several of them stand out preëminently for acts of self-sacrificing kindness on my behalf; notably one gentleman in Iowa who drove me over a distance of eighteen miles after midnight through a raging blizzard, requiring the unremitting efforts of four sturdy horses to pull us through, in order that I might catch a train back East and be with my children at Christmas time, and he was not a particularly emotional man, or anything of a sentimentalist, at that.
I shall never forget the spur of his answer to a remark I made to him that night on our way from the hotel to the lecture hall. The snow was falling lightly when he arrived, but the distance to the hall was so short that we walked it. As we came to the public square I noticed that hitched to the white railing about the county courthouse that stood in the middle thereof were some thirty or forty teams, harnessed to farm wagons of various types, large and small. It was already after eight o'clock, and I was surprised to find the wagons there at so late an hour.
"Your people work late, Mr. Robb," said I, as we sauntered along.
"What do you mean by that?" he inquired.
"Why," said I, "those wagons over there. Isn't it a trifle late for your farmers to be in town?"
"Oh," he said, "those wagons—why no, Mr. Bangs. Those wagons are here for pleasure, not on business. They have brought in a good part of your audience. Some of your people to-night have driven in from as far as twenty miles to hear you."
My heart sank. "Great Scott!" I ejaculated. "Twenty miles, eh? On a night like this—I—I hope I'll be good enough for that."
"I hope so!" was his laconic response.