He rubbed his cheek against my arm.
“Where’s your shirt, boy?”
He pointed.
Oh, such a pitiful, faded, abject blue and white rag it seemed, hanging on the chair back! I turned it this way and that, regarding it dubiously.
“Will it do, Joey?”
“Why, yes, sure it’ll do. My, course it’ll do.”
I sighed. “We’ll have to get some new ones when you start to school, boy.”
“Well, but when I wear the tie Bell Brandon gave me, who sees the shirt,” he said absently.
I looked around at him. He was inspecting a red, angry looking mark on his chest. “Will that always be there, Mr. David?” he asked plaintively, touching it. “It always has been there. What makes it?”
“It’s a birth mark, Joey. If ever you should get stolen, and when I found you a bad man should say: ‘He’s not your boy,’ I could answer: ‘My boy has a round red mark on his chest.’ See how fine that would be.”