ntry in a diff'rent
direction f'm where I started fer, an' I up an' got onto that car, an'
rode the length o' that road, an' got off an' _walked back_--an' I never
went near her house f'm that day to this, an' that," said David, "was
the nearest I ever come to havin' another pardner to my joys an'
sorro's."

"That was pretty near, though," said John, laughing.

"Wa'al," said David, "mebbe Prov'dence might 'a' had some other plan fer
stoppin' me 'fore I smashed the hull rig, if I hadn't run into the
mil'nery shop, but as it was, that fetched me to a stan'still, an' I
never started to run agin."

They drove on for a few minutes in silence, which John broke at last by
saying, "I have been wondering how you got on after your wife died and
left you with a little child."

"That was where Mis' Jones come in," said David. "Of course I got the
best nurse I could, an' Mis' Jones 'd run in two three times ev'ry day
an' see 't things was goin' on as right 's they could; but it come on
that I had to be away f'm home a good deal, an' fin'ly, come fall, I got
the Joneses to move into a bigger house, where I could have a room, an'
fixed it up with Mis' Jones to take charge o' the little feller right
along. She hadn't but one child, a girl of about thirteen, an' had lost
two little ones, an' so between havin' took to my little mite of a thing
f'm the fust, an' my makin' it wuth her while, she was willin', an' we
went on that way till--the' wa'n't no further occasion fur 's he was
concerned, though I lived with them a spell longer when I was at home,
which wa'n't very often, an' after he died I was gone fer a good while.
But before that time, when I was at home, I had him with me all the time
I could manage. With good care he'd growed up nice an' bright, an' as
big as the average, an' smarter 'n a steel trap. He liked bein' with me
better 'n anybody else, and when I c'd manage to have him I couldn't
bear to have him out o' my sight. Wa'al, as I told you, he got to be
most seven year old. I'd had to go out to Chicago, an' one day I got a
telegraph sayin' he was putty sick--an' I took the fust train East. It
was 'long in March, an' we had a breakdown, an' run into an awful
snowstorm, an' one thing another, an' I lost twelve or fifteen hours. It
seemed to me that them two days was longer 'n my hull life, but I fin'ly
did git home about nine o'clock in the mornin'. When I got to the house
Mis' Jones was on the lookout fer me, an' the doo