No sentimental pity for Hervey is justified by this step-parent condition in his colorful career. The worst that can be said of Mr. and Mrs. Walton is that they did not understand him. But then no one understood him. He, on his part, accepted them as he accepted everything. He had nothing against them; he had nothing against anybody. Scout rules, wandering pedlers, railroad conductors, scoutmasters, school principals, tramps, carnival actors, step-parents, were all the same to Hervey. He leaned a little toward carnival actors.
I have sometimes wondered whether he ever had any wistful thoughts of his own mother so lately gone from him. And what his story might have been if she had been spared. If he was capable of deep sentiment we shall have to find that in this narrative. He was certainly blithesome and content at this point of taking up the trail of his aimless and adventurous progress. Like the miller of Dee in the nursery rhyme, “he cared for nobody, no not he.” But he was incapable of malice. Perhaps that was the keynote of his nature. And it was not a bad keynote.
It was to this home, a pretty little house in Farrelton in the Berkshires, that Hervey returned after his summer at Temple Camp. And he overlooked the trifling matter of reporting that he had been dismissed and forbidden ever to return to those scenes of his roving freedom.
Hervey was akin to those boys who point a suggestive finger in the direction an automobile is going in the hope of getting a lift. But his method was far better than that of most boys. It had an original quality all his own which motorists found it hard to resist.
He would saunter diagonally across the road with a nonchalant air of preoccupation the while tossing a ball into the air. This he would dextrously cause to drop into the car which he had designs on. His preoccupied manner of crossing usually had the effect of slowing up the car. The truant ball gave him the opportunity to request its return. For the rest he depended on his personality to get a ride. He figured that if he could bring a passing auto to a halt the rest would be easy, as it usually proved to be.
As he emerged from the railroad station on the day of his return, he espied a Ford touring car starting off. He had not his trusty rubber ball with him so he was forced to make the usual direct request. Perhaps his rather cumbersome suitcase won him favor from the somewhat hard looking young man who drove the car.
This young man did not look like the sort who think too seriously about good turns. He was poorly dressed and wore a cap at that villainous angle affected only by young men of the strong-arm persuasion. He had also (what seemed to harmonize with his cap) a livid scar on his cheek, and he sat in that sophisticated sideways posture at the wheel which suggested the taxi chauffeur.
“You going up Main Street?” Hervey queried, as he took his seat beside the stranger. “I’m going as far as Hart Street.”
“I got yer,” said the young man accommodatingly. “Yer one er dem boy scouts?”
“Scout in looks only,” said Hervey laconically, alluding to his khaki attire.