ed his pa and
took the child to my heart, and got his image printed there so it
won't never rub off through time or eternity. Tommy is like his pa and
he hain't like him; he has his pa's old ways of truthfulness and
honesty, and deep--why good land! there hain't no tellin' how deep
that child is. He has got big gray-blue eyes, with long dark lashes
that kinder veil his eyes when he's thinkin'; his hair is kinder
dark, too, about the color his pa's wuz, and waves and crinkles some,
and in the crinkles it seems as if there wuz some gold wove into the
brown. He has got a sweet mouth, and one that knows how to stay shet
too; he hain't much of a talker, only to himself; he'll set and play
and talk to himself for hours and hours, and though he's affectionate,
he's a independent child; if he wants to know anything the worst kind
he will set and wonder about it (he calls it wonner). He will say to
himself, "I wonner what that means." And sometimes he will talk to
Carabi about it--that is a child of his imagination, a invisible
playmate he has always had playin' with him, talkin' to him, and I
spoze imaginin' that Carabi replies. I have asked him sometimes, "Who
is Carabi, I hearn you talkin' to out in the yard? Where duz he come
from! How duz he look?"

He always acts shy about tellin', but if pressed hard he will say, "He
looks like Carabi, and he comes from right here," kinder sweepin' his
arms round. But he talks with him by the hour, and I declare it has
made me feel fairly pokerish to hear him. But knowin' what strange
avenoos open on every side into the mysterious atmosphere about us,
the strange ether world that bounds us on every pint of the compass,
and not knowin' exactly what natives walk them avenoos, I hain't
dasted to poke too much fun at him, and 'tennyrate I spozed if Tommy
went a long sea-voyage Carabi would have to go too. But who wuz goin'
with Tommy? Thomas J. had got independent rich, and Maggie has come
into a large property; they had means enough, but who wuz to go with
him? I felt the mantilly of responsibility fallin' on me before it
fell, and I groaned in sperit--could I, could I agin tempt the
weariness and danger of a long trip abroad, and alone at that? For I
tackled Josiah on the subject before Thomas J. importuned me, only
with his eyes, sad and beseechin' and eloquent. And Josiah planted
himself firm as a rock on his refusal.

Never, never would he stir one step on a long sea-voyage, no indeed!