"Oh. About the tramp?"
"Yes. Paul, what did you bring him in for? Couldn't you see he was a skellum?"
Paul nodded. "Yes, I could see that. But—skellums are hungry and tired, too, sometimes."
His father smiled in a worried manner. He and Paul never talked intimately with each other, but an intimacy existed of feeling and thought. They took many of the same things for granted.
"Like us," he agreed. "Come on to supper, Paul."
CHAPTER X
It was nearing the lunch hour when Margaret walked down from the Sanatorium to the farm, leaving Ford and Mr. Samson to their unsociable preoccupations on the stoep, and found Paul among the kraals. He had some small matter of work in hand, involving a wagon-chain and a number of yokes; these were littered about his feet in a liberal disorder and he was standing among them contemplating them earnestly and seemingly lost in meditation. He turned slowly as Margaret called his name, and woke to the presence of his visitor with a lightening of his whole countenance.
"Were you dreaming about models?" inquired Margaret. "You were very deep in something."
Paul shook his head. "It was about wagons," he answered seriously. "I was just thinking how they are always going away from places and coming to more places. That's all."
"Wishing you had wheels instead of feet? I see," smiled the girl. "What a traveler you are, Paul."