Rap looked from one to the other, as if in his interest he had forgotten himself for a time, and then he said quietly, "I haven't any father."
"I haven't any mother," said Olive quickly, putting her hand gently on the thin brown one. "We must be friends, Rap."
Her sympathy soothed him immediately, and his gentle nature instantly tried to comfort her by saying, "But you said your father owned the whole of my book. How glad you must be!"
Then they all laughed, and Nat and Dodo began telling about their uncle's room and all the books and birds in it, and about the book he had promised to write for them, until Rap looked so bewildered that Olive was obliged to explain things a little more clearly to him. "Come home with us," cried Nat and Dodo, each seizing him by a hand, "and perhaps uncle will tell you all the names we must learn—head, throat, wings, and what all the other parts are rightly called—and then we can go around together and watch birds."
But as Rap turned over and scrambled up with the aid of his crutch, they saw that he had only one leg, for the trouser of the left leg was tied together just below the knee.
Acting as if they did not notice this, they led the way to the house, going close to the fence that divided the orchard from the road, because there was a little path worn there.
"What is the whole of your name?" asked Dodo, who could not keep from asking questions.
"Stephen Hawley," he answered. "My mother is Ann Hawley, who lives by the mill, and does all the beautiful fine white washing for everybody hereabouts. Don't you know her? I suppose it's because you have just come. I believe my mother could wash a cobweb if she tried, and not tear it," and a glow of pride lit up his face.
"But you said a little while ago that your name was Rap."
"Everybody calls me Rap, because when I go along the road my crutch hits the stones, and says 'rap—rap—rap.'"