They turned quickly, and Tommy beheld rather an old man, clad in ragged garments, who was looking at the lads with a good-natured smile on his face. Tommy had never seen him before, but several of the other lads seemed to know him, for they at once exclaimed:
“Hello, Old Johnny Green! What are you doing here?”
“Oh, just walking around,” answered the man. “I saw you boys over here, and I thought maybe you were going to have a campfire and cook something. I was hungry, so I came over. But I see what you’re doing. Let me dig the post holes for you.”
He took the spade from Sammie’s hand, and soon had a hole sufficiently deep to hold a post when the dirt was filled in around it.
“Who is he?” asked Tommy of Teddy in a whisper, as the two lads were knocking more sides off the boxes.
“Johnny Green is his name, and everybody always calls him ‘Old,’ because there is another Mr. Green, of the same name, in town.”
“Is he a tramp?” asked Tommy.
“No, but he never works—that is, to make any money. He’s always willing to help everybody else at any work he sees going on, but he won’t work for himself—sort of shiftless, my father says.”
“How does he live?” asked Tommy.
“Oh, the town helps support him. If he would only work steadily, he could make good money, for he is handy with tools. But he wanders all around. Everybody likes him, for he’s kind and gentle. He’ll probably be around our ball field all summer, and he’ll help us all he can.”