“Y-e-s, you are right, but I’m glad you didn’t give him up.”
“Tom Tit and I go see him every now and then. Tom Tit feels sorry for him because his trousers are so ugly. He likes to work and wouldn’t mind road-building a bit.”
“When we uns digs, we uns finds so many things, but we uns couldn’t wear such ugly pants. Sometime we uns is a-goin’ to make the poor sick man some pretty pink ones like these,” and he stood up to show his bright pink trousers. They were strangely fashioned, looking rather like Turkish trousers.
“Was the man sick?” asked Lucy, devoutly praying that a fit of the giggles would not choke her.
“You see, Tom Tit and I think that when persons are what the world and the law calls bad, they are really sick. Sometimes they are too sick to be cured, but not often. It is the fault of the doctors and the system and not theirs when they are not cured.”
“Do you live here all the time?” asked Lil. She was dying of curiosity about the strange pair who were so ill assorted and still so intimate.
“Tom Tit does, but I have to go away for a time every fall and winter and Tom Tit keeps house for me while I am gone. He is a famous housekeeper.”
“Do you get lonesome all by yourself?” asked Lucy.
“We uns ain’t never alone. There’s the baby fox and the cow and the chickens, and every day we uns tries to find something and then we uns has to write it down for the spring-keeper ’ginst he comes home. Every day we uns has to go to the post office for the letter, too, and that takes time. The days in winter are so short.”