“Who be you, neighbor?” inquired the newcomer.
The voice essayed a roughness, but only achieved a tentative friendliness. Stebbins hesitated for a second; a suspicious look came into the farmer's misty blue eyes. Then Stebbins, mindful of his prison record and fiercely covetous of his new home, gave another name. The name of his maternal grandfather seemed suddenly to loom up in printed characters before his eyes, and he gave it glibly. “David Anderson,” he said, and he did not realize a lie. Suddenly the name seemed his own. Surely old David Anderson, who had been a good man, would not grudge the gift of his unstained name to replace the stained one of his grandson. “David Anderson,” he replied, and looked the other man in the face unflinchingly.
“Where do ye hail from?” inquired the farmer; and the new David Anderson gave unhesitatingly the name of the old David Anderson's birth and life and death place—that of a little village in New Hampshire.
“What do you do for your living?” was the next question, and the new David Anderson had an inspiration. His eyes had lit upon the umbrella which he had found the night before.
“Umbrellas,” he replied, laconically, and the other man nodded. Men with sheaves of umbrellas, mended or in need of mending, had always been familiar features for him.
Then David assumed the initiative; possessed of an honorable business as well as home, he grew bold. “Any objection to my staying here?” he asked.
The other man eyed him sharply. “Smoke much?” he inquired.
“Smoke a pipe sometimes.”
“Careful with your matches?”
David nodded.