Ah,dear me,it was more serious than I thought.There were tears in her eyes,and I led the Blight and the little sister home--conscience-stricken and humbled.Still Iwould find that young jackanapes of an engineer and let him know that anybody who made the Blight unhappy must deal with me.I would take him by the neck and pound some sense into him.I found him lofty,uncommunicative,perfectly alien to any consciousness that I could have any knowledge of what was going or any right to poke my nose into anybody's business--and I did nothing except go back to lunch --to find the Blight upstairs and the little sister indignant with me.
"You just let them alone,''she said severely.
"Let who alone?''I said,lapsing into the speech of childhood.
"You--just--let--them--alone,''she repeated.
"I've already made up my mind to that.''
"Well,then!''she said,with an air of satisfaction,but why I don't know.
I went back to the poplar grove.The Declaration was over and the crowd was gone,but there was the Hon.Samuel Budd,mopping his brow with one hand,slapping his thigh with the other,and all but executing a pigeon-wing on the turf.
He turned goggles on me that literally shone triumph.
"He's come--Dave Branham's come!''he said."He's better than the Wild Dog.
I've been trying him on the black horse and,Lord,how he can take them rings off!