"Yes. It ain't anyways right for a man ter live for himself alone, shirkin' his duties ter humanity. What did I do this mornin' that was any good whatever to anybody in th' world but myself? I went out 'fore sunrise, when the blue mist was hangin' round the mountain tops an' in among the trees. It was like a fairy dream. I listened t' th' orchestra of the birds—the woodthrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager an' the rest of the thrillin' songsters—and the music was more delicious 'n any opera I've heard in London an' Paris. I wasted a full hour watchin' a fool centipede that had gotten himself tangled in a spider's web—watched th' manoeuvres of that spider for a full hour, I did."
"I allow you learnt suthin', too, since the spider was at home," interrupted Gid. "Them critters has wonderful skill in tactics. I'm figurin' as that hour wasn't a whole lot wasted, Kiddie."
"It was wasted in selfish enjoyment, selfish gratification," Kiddie insisted.
"Git!" exclaimed Gideon. "You dunno what selfishness means, Kiddie, an' you couldn't be selfish if you tried. You's allus doin' suthin' unselfish. Here's you comin' back to this yer camp an' the Sweetwater district, an' right straight away you starts helpin' other folks, pertectin' their homes from hostile Injuns, makin' their lives smoother an' safer. Is it selfish ter do what you've already done? What about your takin' Jim Thurston's place in th' Express, riskin' yer life, an' precious near losin' it? Was that a act of selfishness?"
"It was my fault that Jim was hurt. I couldn't do otherwise than take his place."
"You wouldn't ha' done it if you'd bin selfish. You'd ha' let somebody else carry on the job," argued Gideon. "You's allus thinkin' of others; doin' 'em good turns, givin' 'em pleasure. You've given me a gold timepiece, you've given Isa a hoss, you've given us new guns all round. Thar's not a housewife along the trail as hasn't gotten suthin' as you brought her from England—cloth for a frock, trimmin' fer a hat, a box of scented soap, a machine fer mincin' meat. An' the children—the boys an' gels—what about them, eh? You brought 'em toys an' dolls an' pictur' books, whips, boxes of paints, needlecases with scissors an' thimble all complete. You've filled their little hearts with a joy they never knowed afore. Selfish! Great snakes!"
"Tea's ready," announced Rube Carter, breaking in upon the conversation. "I've opened a new tin o' peaches, and thar's cream."
In spite of Kiddie's efforts to be homely and unassuming, Gideon Birkenshaw was not always entirely at his ease in his presence. The old man recognized that his own upbringing and education had been sadly deficient and that his roughness of speech and manners became painfully obvious in comparison with Kiddie's unvarying courtesy and refinement.
"Kiddie," he said now, as they sat at tea, "thar's a many things in you, I notice, as makes you a whole lot different from what you was in th' old days, 'fore you made the surprisin' discovery that you was a aristocratic nobleman. In a heap o' ways you's the same Kiddie. Nothin' c'n alter your natur' or wipe away th' effects of your early trainin' as a frontier scout. You've lost none o' your skill an' cleverness, but added suthin' to them that makes you inches taller an' bigger'n you was. I guess it's the things you acquired in England as makes you diff'rent. Rubbin' shoulders with them high-class friends o' yours over thar has kinder wore off the rough corners."
"'Twas high time I quitted, perhaps," mused Kiddie. "If I'd stopped over there any longer, I guess there wouldn't have been any corners left to know me by. I should have been worn round as a pebble, exactly like all other pebbles without character and individuality."