Tom was resolved old Caleb should not know that the offer of a reward for his grandson’s capture was still open. He had hated but he had not killed nor sanctioned killing. Tom had no doubt now of the grandson’s guilt but his better knowledge of the whole affair only strengthened his sympathy and liking for the little old man.
“Poor old codger,” Brent mused as they started back. “I never knew his past history. I suppose a lot of folks lost their homes when the land was cleared for the reservoir.”
“They were paid for them,” said Tom. “I guess a lot of them were glad to get the money.”
“You can’t pay a person for his home,” said Brent. “You can pay him for his house. Some of them tore their houses down, I heard, and carried them off and put them up again in the new village near the shore. That’s some idea, moving a village.
“Do you know,” he added, sprawling one of his legs against the windshield and the other outside the car, “I believe it’s a good idea for a village or a city to move; it gets into a rut sort of and needs a change. It’s bad to stay too long in one place. Now you take Brooklyn for instance, or Jersey City—”
“I often feel as if I’d like to get away and do something else for a while,” said Tom, taking a serious view of Brent’s talk. “I don’t mean give up my job at camp, of course, but just get off on a kind of a—you know.”
“Restless kind of—I know,” said Brent. “Be nice to get off in that boat, huh? The one you were shouting about? Just flop around. I suppose you could bang down south in a boat like that. Start about, oh say in October, and hit Palm Beach for the cold weather. I’d like to go down to Dixie so as to get away from the Dixie songs we have up here. There’s nothing like the water, Slady old boy. If I ever get rich I’m going to have a yacht.”
Tom mused, his thoughts returning fondly to the Goodfellow. “She’s some boat all right,” he said. “Hang it all, now you’ve got me thinking of it again.” Then, after a pause he said, “Like to take a little ride over to the Reservoir and pike around? It would only take an hour or so. I feel kind of restless to-day; I don’t want to go straight back. I’ll show you the boat, too, if you care to see it, when we get back to Catskill. It doesn’t cost anything to look at it,” he added wistfully.
“Anywhere you want to go, Tommy,” drawled Brent. “I’ll look at anything you want to show me.
“That’s very kind of you,” said Tom, glancing amusedly at his companion. Brent reclined in an ungainly posture of complacent ease with a: whimsically observant look on his face as if ready to be interested in anything and everything which did not require any physical exertion. It got on Tom’s nerves a little, but it amused him.