ms about him.

"Don't ye holler, little un; don't ye do it! 'Tain't nothin'--on'y
Natty's goin' away a spell; quite a spell, little un. Now kiss Natty....
That's right!... An' you lay still there an' don't holler. An' listen
here, too: Natty's goin' to bring ye somethin'--a grand red ball,
mebbe--if you're good. You wait an' see!"

But Natty hadn't brought the ball. Two years had passed without a scrap
of news of him; and then--he was back. Slipped into the village on a
freighter at dusk one evening. A forlorn scarecrow Nat was; so tattered
of garment, so smeared of coal dust, you scarcely knew him. So full of
strange sophistications, too, and new trails of thought--so oddly rich
of experience. He gave them his story. The tale of an exigent life in a
great city; a piecework life made of such flotsam labors as he could
pick up, of spells of loafing, of odd incredible associates, of months
tagging a circus, picking up a task here and there, of long journeyings
through the country, "riding the bumpers"--even of alms asked at back
doors!

"Oh, not a tramp, Nat!"

The hurt had quivered all through Maw.

But Nat only laughed.

"Jiminy Christmas, it was great!"

He had thrown back his head, laughing. That was Nat all through--sipping
of life generously, no matter in what form.

He had stayed just three weeks. He had spent them chiefly defeating
Maw's plans to keep him. Wanderlust kept him longer the next time. That
was eight years ago. Since then he had been back home three times. Never
so poor and shabby as at first--indeed, Nat's wanderings had prospered
more or less--but still remote, somewhat mysterious, touched by new
habits of life, new ways of speech.

The countryside, remembering the manner of his first return, shook its
head darkly. A tramp--a burglar, even. God knew what! When, on his third
visit home, he brought an air of extreme opulence, plenty of money, and
a sartorial perfection undreamed of locally, the heads wagged even
harder. A gambler probably; a ne'er-do-well certainly; and one to break
his mother's heart in the end.

But none of this was true, as Luke knew. It was just that Nat hated
farming; that he liked to rove and take a floater's fortune. He had a
taste for the mechanical and followed incomprehensible quests. San
Francisco had known him; the big races at Cincinnati; the hangars of
Mineola. He was restless--Nat; but he was respectable. No one could look
into his merry blue eyes and not kn