"Avoirdupois!" he snorted. "Can't a man continue to have ideas now and then, even if he does become a—a trifle plump. And that boy—why, Sarah I tell you——!"
And then his sister put one hand over his lips.
"I know, Cal," she interrupted placidly. "I know! You're going to tell me, once more, your pet theory that there's many a boy in that backwoods who might paint a great canvas, or model a deathless bronze—or—or lead a lost cause, if he could only be found and provided with the chance. It sounds—it sounds very big and grand and romantic, Cal, but has it ever occurred to you that anyone big enough for things like those would find the way himself?"
Immediately, jerkily, Caleb started to straighten up. Argumentatively—and then she checked him.
"Oh, I know you don't believe it and I—I don't think I do myself, Cal. A man has to know what opportunity is before he can go out and hunt up his own big chance. I just said it for the sake of argument, Cal. I—I'm like Samanthy—ole Samanthy, you know! I'm a woman, and when I git my teeth sot in a argumint I never do let up. Have your dreams, you—you boy! And in the meantime, if you have any plans, tell me, please, what are you going to do with him in the morning?"
Caleb Hunter bobbed his head, vehemently. Rapidly he related to her the episode of the switch engine in Dexter Allison's millyards.
"And I believe what I believe," he insisted, doggedly. "And to-morrow I aim to give that boy a ride in one of Allison's 'steam injine' cabs, if it's all I do!"
"I thought so," said Miss Sarah.
For a time she sat there upon his arm chair. Neither spoke, nor felt the need for words. Just before she rose to go upstairs, she broke that quiet.
"He has an odd, strange, half-wild beauty," she mused aloud. "A beauty that is quite unusual, I should say, in children of his—his station. His hair is silken and, oh so thick! And his eyes and square chin with that little cleft. And his nose—his nose, I should say, might be said to denote estheticism—and—a—a—ah——"