Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/358

346 be talkin' sich nonsince,' she says. Thim very words! 'Don't be talkin' sich nonsince,' she says."

He leaned down again to hold a peanut to the squirrel. "Mrs. Elliott?" he asked thickly. "Where did she live?"

"On Tinth Street, to bo sure. An' she 'd siven to help. 'T was a lov'ly place, an' a fine fam'ly—an' good frinds they was to me. The hand o' God was with me whin I wint there."

He said: "Did y' ever know Jim Farrell?"

Her hand, on the bundle of washing on her knee, twitched and trembled with a sudden leap of her heart. "Indeed, indeed," she said, "he was keepin' comp'ny with me whin he 'listed."

He dropped his head, as if shielding himself from her eyes behind the breadth of his shoulders.

"Did yeh know 'm?" she asked in a quaver.

He did not answer for a moment. Then he said huskily: "He was in th' Excelsior Brigade with me. I jus' ust to hear him talkin' about a girl at Mrs. Elliott's."

The squirrel darted away to safety with another nut, but the man did not rise from his stooping posture. As for Mrs. Dolan, she was gazing, with trembling lips, at the shimmer of sun among the trees. "What become of 'm, sur?" she whispered.

"He was killed," he said. "At Gettysburg."

Two great tears trickled down her old nose. She wiped them off with the corner of her shawl. "God rest his soul," she said. "We was to be married whin