Wully was delighted. Knight was a man whose opinion was valuable, a prosperous man, a man dressed as men dress in cities, whose interest he felt was not merely assumed for political ends. “How’s your mother?” he went on. He asked about the children, and the crops, and the new town which was to be near them. Finally he said:
“Well you certainly don’t look much like you did that morning. You were sick. Skin and bones. Do you remember?”
“Do I remember!” exclaimed Wully. “Will I ever forget!” He turned to his wife. “Chirstie, I was sitting right down there by the elevator, where the sidewalk is built up high, you know. I wasn’t sitting, either, I was lying stretched out, to try to keep from throwing up! I thought I’d seen Jimmy Sproul out there, and I’d ride home with him, and when I hurried up to him, it wasn’t Jimmy at all! It just made me sick! And I was lying there when Mr. Knight came along, and began asking me what was the matter of me. He said he would take me home. ‘How far is it?’ you asked, and when I said twenty-six miles, you said, ‘Oh! Twenty-six miles!’ Naturally. That made some difference. My heart sank, as they say. Or maybe it was my breakfast trying to get out. Anyway, I had a pang of some kind. And you said, ‘You wait here!’ And pretty soon along you came with those grays! I tell you I felt better even then. I got better all the way home. Every step. It seemed that morning as if I couldn’t wait another minute to start home!”
“Naturally!” remarked Mr. Knight, looking again with a smile, at Chirstie.
“Oh, I didn’t know her then! If I had known her I’d have started home crawling! Have you got those grays yet?” asked Wully, suddenly curious.
“No, I haven’t.” The man smiled reminiscently. “I wish I had, sometimes. A Chicago man came along and wanted them. He was determined to have them. I let them go for a half section of land in Lyons County. I wouldn’t have done it,” he added confidently, “only my son had a baby born a day or two before that. I thought the land would be a good thing to keep for the child. How old is this little fellow?” He snapped his fingers invitingly towards the child.
“Oh, he’s—a year or two. Something like that, isn’t he?” he asked his wife.
“Tut, tut, McLaughlin! You need experience! When they’re young like that the women count them in months. Don’t they, Mrs. McLaughlin?” he appealed.
“How old is your grandchild?” Wully parried boldly.
“Oh, mine’s several months. Mine’s—well, he’s got two teeth already!” And they laughed. Wully hastened to safer ground. If he wasn’t careful, someone might ask him when he was married.