“Still walking, I see.”
“Man came to camp wanted to take my picture.”
“Get out! Look here, Pop, I liked this water so well that I brought a friend of mine here to try it.”
“The Ashokan Reservoir is poison,” old Caleb said.
Tom was just about to present Anson in a mock way of introduction, when the whole matter passed out of his hands. He could not have described what happened. He had an uncomfortable feeling of being an outsider. He saw Anson in a new light, infinitely gentle, with an unutterable joy welling up within him. He saw him sitting sideways on the wall, arm around the poor old shoulders. He heard him saying, “It’s just me, granp’, don’t you know me? It’s Anse.”
He was slow in understanding, but he understood. He showed no emotion, but rather an accustomed familiarity with his grandson which went to Tom’s heart. But his old withered hands trembled and with one of them he adjusted his old octagon-shaped steel spectacles and looked straight at his grandson. It was so unusual for him to look at any one individually that the act seemed filled with pathos. Tom wondered how they were going to explain everything to make it comprehensible to his mind.
Fortunately it was not necessary to explain. Old Caleb was of an age and condition where reasons are not necessary, where only facts count. He did not even ask where Anson came from or how he and Tom had met. But he clung to him as a child clings, as if he feared he might run away. And when he had struggled through the first shock he scrutinized his grandson in a sternly critical way, and seeming reassured of his identity he released one hand and took a fresh hold with the other. Old Caleb did not pour out his soul, but he hung on. And in the alternate clutching of those two withered hands there was all the pathos of reunion. Anson smiled at Tom and submitted. The fugitive was caught and held at last....
“So that’s your name, is it—Anse?” said Tom. “Well then, Anse, you see where I’m sitting down, here on the ground? This is just the way I sat talking with Pop two months ago. And I told him that wherever you were I was going to drink your health in good, pure, innocent, spring water.; Didn’t I, Pop?”
“I was in a movie,” said old Caleb; “I got two dollars, Anse. You didn’t happen to see that play?”
“So now,” said Tom, winking at Anson, “so now I’m going to drink to your health again. Down with the Ashokan Reservoir! May it dry up—only it never does.”