e
finished, Tommy reassured his guest again and again, sometimes laughing,
sometimes very earnest.

"Oh, he won't hurt you, Joe!"

But Joe's chest was rising and falling. He was afraid of Steve Earle,
afraid of those powerful arms, even of those kind gray eyes.

An hour later Steve Earle called Tommy to him.

"Keep him with you, son," he said. "I'm going to Greenville."

He came back in the afternoon. From the orchard they saw him get out of
the car and go up on the porch. Joe would not come back to the house. He
did consent, though, to venture into the yard, near the barn. They were
sitting on the concrete base of the windmill when from around the house
Tommy saw Mr. John Davis and his wife drive up the avenue and get out
near the porch. They lived across the creek and were neighbours. They
did not have a car, but drove an old white horse named Charlie, who was
always pricking up his ears at you, hoping you would give him an apple.
Mr. Davis had a long beard and Mrs. Davis was stout and wore spectacles.

"You go and see what they want," grinned Joe. "I'll stay here."

In vain Tommy begged him to come, too. They weren't going to hurt him.
They would give him apples. Joe shook his head. He didn't want any
apples.

So Tommy went, Frank following. They were sitting on the porch, talking
to his father. Yes, they were talking about Joe; and Tommy catching the
infection of secrecy from his guest, stopped at the side of the portico
that set high off the ground, where he could hear without being seen,
while old Frank, panting, lay down beside him.

He knew the voices of them all. He often went with his father across the
fields to Mr. Davis's house. It was always a delightful excursion. The
Davises didn't have any cook or maid, but they had a grape arbour whose
vines formed a roof thick as a house, and out in the garden they had a
row of bee gums painted white. They lived alone; they had no children,
which struck Tommy as being strange, like not having a dog or a cow. The
water at their well was very cool, and you drew it with a bucket. While
his father and Mr. Davis talked on the porch, Mrs. Davis would call him
in the kitchen, him and Frank both. She seemed to be forever making a
cake. He would talk to her and tell her all about Frank. He was always
sorry when time came to go home.

Mr. Davis was talking now. He always talked in a mumbling way, because
of his beard that the words got tangled in. They thought the chi