“I want my boy,” sez he, “I will have my child!”
And I see that he did have a deathly longin’ and hungry look in his eyes. I could see that he did love his wife and child, deep and earnest. And I felt a little mite tenderer towards him, not much, for I kep’ a-thinkin’ of how Annie’s face had looked as she come and throwed herself at my feet.
The memory of that white face and them big, anguished eyes riz my heart up and kep’ it from meltin’ right down under the agony of that man’s look.
The B. I. L., whose selfishness had done the hull work, he too looked a heartfelt anxiety about the boy. I see that he loved him too, and wuz proud of him.
But, as I say, the memory of the Giant Wrong that had struck down Annie and the boy stood right by me and nerved me up, and I sez—
“You can’t have the child!”
Then Ellick flared right up, and sez he—
“I will have the child, and I’ll let you know that I will! I am his natural guardian, and I’ll let you know that the law is on my side, and I can take him, and I will take him!”
“No,” sez I, “you can’t take him!”
“He can!” sez the B. I. L., speakin’ up sharp as a meat-axe—“he can; nobody loves the child as well as we do; and he is the child’s natural guardian, and we can take him away from any place you have put him in.”