"Well," he said, with a sigh, "if you ever get knocked down and hurt badly, come back up here, and I will patch you up if I am living; and if not, come back anyhow. The place will heal you provided you don't take drugs. God bless you! Good-by." He walked with Keith to the outer edge of his little porch and shook hands with him again, and again said, "Good-by: God bless you!" When Keith turned at the foot of the hill and looked back, he was just reentering his door, his spare, tall frame clearly outlined against the light within. Keith somehow felt as if he were turning his back on a landmark.
Just as Keith approached the gate on his return home, a figure rose up from a fence-corner and stood before him in the starlight.
"Good even'n', Mr. Keith." The voice was Dave Dennison's. Keith greeted him wonderingly. What on earth could have brought the boy out at that time of the night? "Would you mind jest comin' down this a-way a little piece?"
Keith walked back a short distance. Dave was always mysterious when he had a communication to make. It was partly a sort of shyness and partly a survival of frontier craft.
Dave soon resolved Keith's doubt. "I hear you're a-goin' away and ain't comin' back no more?"
"How did you hear that--I mean, that I am not coming back again?" asked Keith.
"Well, you're a-sayin' good-by to everybody, same's if they were all a-goin' to die. Folks don't do that if they're a-comin' back." He leaned forward, and in the semi-darkness Keith was aware that he was scrutinizing his face.
"No, I do not expect to come back--to teach school again; but I hope to return some day to see my friends."
The boy straightened up.
"Well, I wants to go with you."