“That's what it is, son, but the banks are pretty well grown up with willows since my time.”
“Where's the sheep-wash, Pop, where you swum the lambs?” He was a grave little boy, and he had come a great way to see all these wonders.
His father turned a trifle shame-facedly to Mr. Bartlett:
“I been trying to hearten him up a bit on the trip,” he explained; then he added, “You can't see the sheep-wash from here, son; it's off to the other side of the town.”
“Oh! Where's the sugar bush, where you and Grandpap made the long sweetening, and where you killed the timber-wolf, have we passed that?”
The man glanced back over his shoulder, “I reckon from the look of things that's been cleaned up,” he said regretfully. “I laid off to show it to you as we come along.”
“I wish she was here, don't you, Pop?” said the boy in a whisper, and he tucked his small hand into that of his father. The latter made no answer to this.
“Do you plan to locate in Benson?” asked Mr. Bartlett.
“Eh?” said the stranger, roused from the revery into which the child's words had thrown him. “No, I guess not; I ain't come back to stop. I reckon I need more elbow room than you got left in this part of the country.”
The boy nudged his father, and then placing a small hand with elaborate caution over his own lips as if to signify the need of reticence, smiled with deep cunning. The stranger lapsed into a moody silence and withdrew his eyes from the reach of valley into which they were descending, while Mr. Bartlett returned his undivided attention to the four horses he was driving. At intervals the child raised his eyes to his father's face as if to ask some question, but respecting his silence turned away again with the question unasked.