"I know what you are thinking. The time I suggested, way back there in Dakota, that you were sticking too close. You've never got over it. I've tried to make up for it, but—— I really don't blame you. I was horrid. I deserve being beaten. But you do keep on punishing ra——"
"Punishing? Lord, I didn't mean to! No! Honest! It was nothing. You were right. Looked as though I was inviting myself—— But, oh, pleassssse, Miss Boltwood, don't ever think for a sec. that I meant to be a grouch——"
"Then do tell me—— Who is this Milton Daggett that you know so much better than I ever can?"
"Well," Milt crossed his knees, caught his chin in his hand, "I don't know as I really do know him so well. I thought I did. I was onto his evil ways. He was the son of the pioneer doctor, Maine folks."
"Really? My mother came from Maine."
Milt did not try to find out that they were cousins. He went on, "This kid, Milt, went to high school in St. Cloud—town twenty times as big as Schoenstrom—but he drifted back because his dad was old and needed him, after his mother's death——"
"You have no brothers or sisters?"
"No. Nobody. 'Cept Lady Vere de Vere—which animal she is going to get cuffed if she chews up any more of my overcoat out in my tent tonight!... Well, this kid worked 'round, machinery mostly, and got interested in cars, and started a garage—— Wee, that was an awful shop, first one I had! In Rauskukle's barn. Six wrenches and a screwdriver and a one-lung pump! And I didn't know a roller-bearing from three-point suspension! But—— Well, anyway, he worked along, and built a regular garage, and paid off practically all the mortgage on it——"
"I remember stopping at a garage in Schoenstrom, I'm almost sure it was, for something. I seem to remember it was a good place. Do you own it? Really?"
"Ye-es, what there is of it."