Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/106

Rh command of uneducated women. Alas! she did not understand that reproaches never yet brought back the wanderer. For though Steve loved his wife and child in his own fashion, his home had become an unhappy place, and he found it more agreeable to stay away from it than to do his duty and make it happy. Unfortunately, too, he began to meet in his tramps men of the same nomadic tastes as himself, but with far less innocent habits. Sarah trembled when she saw what disreputable characters lounged at the street-comers waiting for him when he paid her his almost regular weekly visit.

"Thou wilt surely get into trouble, Steve, if thou goes with bad company," she said, holding his hand, the hand in which she had just put half of her wage. "Thou art so simple and open-hearted, they'll make a tool of thee, see if they doan't! My dear lad, I doan't like t' look of that man that is waiting for thee."

"He's a real good fellow, Sarah, only he's out of luck, as I am. There isn't a flower nor plant in t' hedge-row he doesn't know all about. I can tell thee, he is better than many a book."