“Yep,” replied the tall tramp, in a deep but serious and quiet voice, “and right about here is the spot where I jumped on a freight-train fifteen years ago, the night I ran away from home. That seems like yesterday, though I've not been here since.”
“Skipped a good home because the old lady brought you a new dad! You wouldn't catch me being run out by no stepfather. Billy, you was rash.”
“Mebby I was. But, on the dead, Pete, it was mostly jealousy. I thought my mother couldn't care for me any more if she could take a second husband. My sister thought so too, but she wasn't able to get away like me. Of course I was strong. It was boyish pique that drove me away. I didn't fancy having another man in my dead father's place, either. And I wanted to get around and see the world a bit. After I'd gone I often wished I hadn't. I'd never imagined how much I loved mother and sis. But I was tougher and prouder in some ways than most kids. You can't understand that sort of thing, Pete. And you can't guess how I feel, bein' back here for the first time in fifteen years. Think of it, I was just fifteen when I came away. Why, I spent half my life here, Petie!”
“Oh, I've read somewhere about that,—the way great men feel when they visit their native town.”
The short tramp took a clay pipe from his coat pocket and stuffed into it a cigar-end fished from another pocket. Then he inquired:
“And now you're here, Billy, what are you go'n to do?”
“Only ask around what's become o' my folks, then go away. It won't take me long.”
“There'll be a through coal-train along in about an hour, 'cordin' to what the flagmen told us at that last town. Will you be back in time to bounce that?”
“Yes. We needn't stay here. There's little to be picked up in a place like this.”
“Then skin along and make your investigations. I'll sit here and smoke till you come back. If you could pinch a bit of bread and meat, by the way, it wouldn't hurt.”