“That’s what were offered for my boy,” said the old man. Tom had thought to get away from that topic.

“Two thousand, huh?”

“A man is worth more’n a boat,” said old Dyker.

“Oh sure,” said Tom. “But that boat’s worth a good deal more than two thousand. I’m plum crazy about that boat, it’s got everything on it you can think of. It’s named Goodfellow. Pretty good name, hey?”

“Old Merrick, he were rich,” was all the old man said. Tom construed this as an indirect reflection against young Homer, because he was in the same hated class as the late Mr. Merrick.

As they made their way along, Tom fell to wondering what were the facts about this dark business which the little old man cherished in his memory. It was impossible to get a rational and consecutive account out of him, but evidently a tragedy had occurred some years back and not the least sad effect of it, whatever it was, was that it had set this poor old creature’s wits askew and made him a wanderer.

From his own account he had tramped as far as the metropolis where he must have cut a strange figure with his shabby, rustic clothes and his crazy stick. Tom pictured him trudging down Broadway striking the sidewalk resolutely with his cane, heedless of the gaping throng. No wonder the moving picture people had used him.

Even now, as he trudged along beside him, bent and wizened and pathetic with a hundred dubious signs of lonesome poverty, there was a vigor about him which made him at once both ludicrous and picturesque. His whole being seemed so concentrated on the task of walking that Tom refrained from putting on him the added burden of conversation.

The first crimson glow of sunset was on the summit of the hills to the west and as this faded to the sombre shade of twilight, the countryside seemed suddenly to be pervaded by a stillness which by contrast emphasized every sound along the wayside. The pounding of the old man’s stick upon the stony road seemed more aggressively audible, and Tom glanced amusedly sideways now and again, smiling at his companion’s intentness.

Across the fields a laden hay wagon was lumbering homeward and its towering, disordered burden changed color in the witchery of the twilight as it moved slowly out of the dying golden area. The voices of the men seemed crisp and clear like voices heard across the water. Before the wayfarers, the road seemed clear 

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