As for Mr. Tag, he hurried on, never once looking back until he had reached a hill, against which the sun was setting. He then slowed up a little, lifted the flap of his hat cautiously, as if to be sure he was out of ear-shot—then stopped. He pulled off his hat, shook it to and fro—unconsciously, I think—in his hand as one who comes out of the storm. He looked about him a while, as if undetermined, and then browsed about vaguely in the sunset, until his bent, shambling figure seemed melting into the golden glory that enveloped it; and his round, chubby head was tipped with light.
I thought probably he wanted to see me, so I climbed up the hill. He seemed to approve of my coming, and walked down in the shade to meet me.
“Ann was sorter rough to me, wan’t she?” he said, with a chuckle of deprecation.
I assented quietly to the lack of smoothness in Ann’s remarks.
“You aint know’d me long,” he said, with a sudden flicker of earnestness; “and you’ve knowed the worst part of me. You’ve knowed the trouble and the fag-end. You warn’t in at the good part of my life!”
I should think not, poor fellow. Ever since I had known him he had been the same shabby, good-for-nothing that he is now. He had grown a bit more serious of late, and his long face—it was abnormally long between the eyes and the chin—had whitened somewhat, but otherwise he was about the same shabby, ragged, half-starved old fellow I had known for a year or so. Yes, Bob, I had clearly known the worst of you!
“I was a better man once; not a better man, either, as I know of, but I had luck. When me and Ann married, there warn’t a happier couple nowhere. I remember just as well when I courted her. She didn’t think about me then as she does now. We had a buggy to ourselves, and we turned down a shady road. I fetched it on soon after we left the crowd, and she was about as well pleased as me. It seemed like that road was the road to heaven, and we was so happy that we wasn’t in no hurry to get to the end of it. Ann was handsome then. Oh yes, she was!”—as I winced at this,—“and at first as good a wife to me as ever a man had.
“It may a-been me that started the trouble. I was unfortnit in everything I touched. My fingers slipped off o’ everything and everything slipped off o’ them. I could get no grip on nothin’. I worked hard, but something harder agin me. Ann was ambitious and uppish, and I used to think when I come home at night, most tired to death, she was gettin’ to despise me. She’d snap me up and abuse me till actually I was afraid to come home. I never misused her or give her a back word. I thought maybe she wasn’t to blame, and that what she said about me was true. Things kept a-gitten worse, and we sold off pretty much what we had. Five years ago a big surprise came to us. It was a baby—a boy—him!” nodding toward the hut. “It was a surprise to both of us. We’d been married fourteen years. It made Ann harder on me than ever. She never let me rest; it was all the time hard words and hard looks. I never raised even a look against her, o’ course. I thought she was right about me. He never had a cross word with me. Him and me knowed each other from the start. We had a langwidge of our own. Ther wasn’t no words in it—just looks and grunts. I never could git ‘nough, nuther could he. He know’d more an’ me. Ther was a kinder way-off look in his eyes that was solemn and deep, I tell you. At last Ann got to breaking me up. Whenever she catch me with him she’d drive me off. I’d always hurry off, ’cause I never wanted him to hear her ’spressin herself ’bout me. ’Peared like he understood every word of it. Mos’t two years ago, and I ain’t had one since. I couldn’t git one. Ann commenced takin’ in washing, and one day she said I shouldn’t hang around no more a-eatin’ him and her out of house and home. That was more’n a year ago, and I seen him since to talk to him. Every time I go about she hustles me about like she did to-day. I never make no fuss. She’s right about me, I reckon. I am powerful no ’count. But he has stirred things in me I ain’t felt movin’ for many a year!”
“What’s his name, Bob?”
“Got none. She never would let me talk to her ’bout it, and I ain’t got no right to name him. I ast her once how it would do to call him little Bob, and she said I better git him sumpin’ to eat; he couldn’t eat a name, nor dress in it neither; which was true. But he’s got my old face on him, and my look. I know that, and he knows it too.”