"Yes, this is our home, though we travel a good deal. How do you like it?"
The boy seemed to find it hard to answer. At last he said, "Do you wish me to speak politely or truthfully?"
"Truthfully, by all means."
"Well, sir—I find it ghostly and lonely."
Mr. Devering repeated the words, "Ghostly and lonely." Then he broke into a hearty laugh. "And I'm lonely only when I'm in cities pushing my way among crowds of weary people who don't care a rap whether I'm dead or alive."
"Do you love the trees, sir?" asked Dallas, "these startling green monsters?"
"I worship them, boy. They come next the animals with me. This one here is Little Sister," and he threw his arm round a slender silver birch. "And that maple," said Mr. Devering, pointing to the one where the catbird was still sitting. "Doesn't it look like a slender young living thing swaying there in the wind? See how it bends its pretty head and waves its green arms toward us. Can't you throw it a pleasant glance, boy?"
I was amused with the play of the boy's brown eyebrows. "I might love a maple," he said, "but those big pines and stiff spruces——" and he shivered.
"My soldier brothers," said Mr. Devering, "so straight and sturdy, guarding my property and reaching up their heads to heaven. Do you know what they are begging for, boy?"
"No, sir."