“Who, Joey?”
“Her—the—woman. The one that made me swear when I saw her in the workshop.”
“Oh, I’d forgotten your behaviour in the shop, Joey! It was reprehensible—it was rude—”
Joey nodded. “I forgot I was a human bein’.”
He put his elbows on the table, sunk his chin in his hands, and regarded me. I raised my coffee-cup hurriedly, drained the contents, and coughed spasmodically, Joey’s eyes widening in concern.
Two days after this conversation with Joey, as, butterfly-net in hand, I was crossing the ploughed field back of the cabin at noon returning from a collecting trip, I saw the bent figure of a man approaching along the river road. He carried a sack of flour on his back and he walked with his head so far forward that his chin almost touched his knees. I was feeling particularly jubilant, having taken four Electas, six Zerenes and two specimens of Breuner’s Silver-spot, and I accosted him lustily: “Good day, Lundquist.”
He attempted to straighten up, found the effort of no avail, and nodded. I rested on the bars and he came slowly toward me. His red face was so knotted and twisted that his very eyes seemed warped askew beneath his ugly freckled forehead. His old hands were horny and purple-veined, his legs spindling and bowed. Poor old derelict! Hapless, hard old man! He lived high up on Nigger Head mountain alone with the birds and squirrels. How he subsisted was a mystery. But he always had tobacco to smoke, and a corn-cob pipe to smoke it in. This fact comforted me, when I fell to musing on his meagre estate.
“It’s a fine day, Lundquist,” I continued.
He came closer, halted, and peered up at me.
“Ya, it ban.”