“So it’s awake ye be?” Big Joe returned nervously. “Well now I was just lookin’ and seem’ if ye was all right. Sure an’ the weather’s gittin’ cold and all and I got wonderin’ how the throat was. I bought a new stove what’ll give ye lots o’ heat—it’s comin’ in the mornin’.”
“Gee whiz!” Skippy said gratefully, then: “You sorta looked worried.”
Big Joe turned his back and started to undress.
“I’ve got to be tellin’ ye sometime, kid—I—listen....”
“You’ve heard about Pop, huh?” Skippy sat up.
“Yes—they....”
“They what?” said Skippy anxiously.
“They turned down the appeal. But don’t be takin’ on about it, Skippy. Sure an’ next year we’ll be diggin’ up new evidence. Now....”
“I ain’t gonna take on, Big Joe, honest I ain’t,” said Skippy bravely. “On accounta you I ain’t. You been so good—all the money you spent tryin’ to get Pop free. An’ now—well, maybe if I don’t hope about it sumpin’ll happen, sometime.”
“Sure now that’s bein’ a good kid, takin’ it so aisy like. We’ll be tryin’ agin like I said. Some time Marty Skinner’ll get over his crazy notion that iverybody in Brown’s Basin’s agin him and that Toby did the job. Sure he hates iverybody here so much I hear he’s got Buck Flint to agree to buy the whole inlet. And thin he’ll be drivin’ us squatters out, so he will.”