“I disremember, Dannie,” he answered, a bit put out. “The lads told me, out there on the grounds the day, when I got wind of her bein’ here, but I’ve clean forgot. It won’t matter, anyhow, will it, lad? for, sure, I’m able t’ ask.”
“An’ you’ve hopes?”
He trudged on, staring straight ahead, now silent and downcast. “Well, no, Dannie,” he answered, at last, “not what you might call hopes. So many, Dannie, haves declined, that I’d be s’prised t’ cotch one that wouldn’t slip the hook. But not havin’ cast for this one, lad, I’ve not give up. I’m told they’s no wonderful demand for the maid on accounts of temper and cross-eyes; an’ so I was sort of allowin’ she might have a mind t’ try a fool, him bein’ the on’y skipper t’ hand. Mother used t’ say if I kep’ on she ’lowed I’d haul one out in the end: an’ I ’low mother knowed. She never ’lowed I’d cotch a perfeck specimen, in p’int o’ looks, for them, says she, mates accordin’ t’ folly; but she did say, Dannie, that the maid I wed would come t’ know me jus’ the way mother knowed me, an t’ love me jus’ the way mother loved me, for my goodness. ’Twas kind o’ mother t’ think it: nobody else, Dannie, was ever so kind t’ me. I wonder why she was! Would you say, Dannie,” he asked, turning anxiously, “that a cross-eyed maid could be fair on looks? Not,” he added, quickly, “that I’d care a wonderful sight: for mother used t’ say that looks wiped off in the first washin’, anyhow.”
I did not answer.
“You wouldn’t say, would you, lad,” he went on, “that I was fair on looks?”
An ungainly little man, this Moses Shoos: stout enough about the chest, where a man’s strength needs lie, big-shouldered, long-armed, but scrawny and 94 crooked in the legs and of an inconfident, stumbling gait, prone to halt, musing vacantly as he went. He was bravely clad upon his courtship: a suit of homespun from the Quick as Wink, given in fair dealing, as to quality, by Tumm, the clerk, but with reservations as to fit––everywhere (it seemed) unequal to its task, in particular at the wrists and lean shanks. His visage was in the main of a gravely philosophical cast, full at the forehead, pensive about the eyes, restless-lipped, covered upon cheeks and chin with a close, curly growth of yellow beard of a color with his hair: ’twas as though, indeed, he carried a weight of thought––of concern and helpless sympathy for the woes of folk. ’Twas set with a child’s eyes: of the unfaded blue, inquiring, unafraid, innocent, pathetic, reflecting the emotion of the moment; quick, too, but in no way to shame him, to fill with tears. He spoke in a colorless drawl, with small variation of pitch: a soft, low voice, of clear timbre, with a note of melancholy insistently sounding, whatever his mood. I watched him stumble on; and I wondered concerning the love his mother had for him, who got no other love, but did not wonder that he kept her close within his heart, for here was no mystery.
“Eh, Dannie?” he reminded me, with a timid little smile, in which was yet some glint of vanity.
“Oh, ay!” I answered; “you’re fair on looks.”
“Ay,” said he, in fine simplicity; “mother used t’ say so, too. She ’lowed,” he continued, “that I was a sight stronger on looks ’n any fool she ever knowed. 95 It might have been on’y mother, but maybe not. The lads, Dannie, out there on the grounds, is wonderful fond o’ jokin’, an’ they says I’ve a power o’ looks; but mother,” he concluded, his voice grown caressive and reverent, “wouldn’t lie.”