that he neither had thanked them nor said
good-bye. Considering what they had been through, they never would come
again. His heart sank until he had palpitation in his wading-boots.

Stretching the length of the limb, he thought deeply, though he was not
thinking of Black Jack or Wessner. Would the Bird Woman and the Angel
come again? No other woman whom he ever had known would. But did they
resemble any other women he ever had known? He thought of the Bird
Woman's unruffled face and the Angel's revolver practice, and presently
he was not so sure that they would not return.

What were the people in the big world like? His knowledge was so very
limited. There had been people at the Home, who exchanged a stilted,
perfunctory kindness for their salaries. The visitors who called on
receiving days he had divided into three classes: the psalm-singing
kind, who came with a tear in the eye and hypocrisy in every feature
of their faces; the kind who dressed in silks and jewels, and handed to
those poor little mother-hungry souls worn toys that their children
no longer cared for, in exactly the same spirit in which they pitched
biscuits to the monkeys at the zoo, and for the same reason--to see how
they would take them and be amused by what they would do; and the third
class, whom he considered real people. They made him feel they cared
that he was there, and that they would have been glad to see him
elsewhere.

Now here was another class, that had all they needed of the world's best
and were engaged in doing work that counted. They had things worth while
to be proud of; and they had met him as a son and brother. With them he
could, for the only time in his life, forget the lost hand that every
day tortured him with a new pang. What kind of people were they and
where did they belong among the classes he knew? He failed to decide,
because he never had known others similar to them; but how he loved
them!

In the world where he was going soon, were the majority like them, or
were they of the hypocrite and bun-throwing classes?

He had forgotten the excitement of the morning and the passing of time
when distant voices aroused him, and he gently lifted his head. Nearer
and nearer they came, and as the heavy wagons rumbled down the east
trail he could hear them plainly. The gang were shouting themselves
hoarse for the Limberlost guard. Freckles did not feel that he deserved
it. He would have given much to be able to go to the men