“You have no idea at all where he is, Thea?” He leaned against the mantel and looked down at her.
“No, I wish I had. He may be dead by this time. That was five years ago, and he used himself hard. Mrs. Kohler was always afraid he would die off alone somewhere and be stuck under the prairie. When we last heard of him, he was in Kansas.”
“If he were to be found, I’d like to do something for him. I seem to get a good deal of him from this.” He opened the book again, where he kept the place with his finger, and scrutinized the purple ink. “How like a German! Had he ever sung the song for you?”
“No. I didn’t know where the words were from until once, when Harsanyi sang it for me, I recognized them.”
Fred closed the book. “Let me see, what was your noble brakeman’s name?”
Thea looked up with surprise. “Ray, Ray Kennedy.”
“Ray Kennedy!” he laughed. “It couldn’t well have been better! Wunsch and Dr. Archie, and Ray, and I,”—he told them off on his fingers,—“your whistling-posts! You haven’t done so badly. We’ve backed you as we could, some in our weakness and some in our might. In your dark hours—and you’ll have them—you may like to remember us.” He smiled whimsically and dropped the score into the trunk. “You are taking that with you?”
“Surely I am. I haven’t so many keepsakes that I can afford to leave that. I haven’t got many that I value so highly.”
“That you value so highly?” Fred echoed her gravity playfully. “You are delicious when you fall into your vernacular.” He laughed half to himself.
“What’s the matter with that? Isn’t it perfectly good English?”