Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/211

 "Of course, if you don't want to be no more than that!"

"I do want to be more than that, I'm pinin' and pindlin' away to be more than that, Uncle Boley, sir. But I couldn't approach her under any false pretenses, or under present unfortunate conditions. I'm a footless wayfarer, Uncle Boley; I have no place to lay my head. Here to-day, away to-morrow, like a bird on the wing, a pore old ornery crow-bird, sir, that's sailed off by the wind ever' whichway, and no place to light at all, and call it home."

"Then it's time you was makin' a home, and puttin' somebody in it to look after it, by granger! It makes me mad to hear a young feller with the daylight of his life ahead of him growlin' about havin' no place to light. What does a man need but a woman, and what does a woman need but a man?"

Uncle Boley's exposition of the simplicity of life drew that glimmering smile into Hartwell's eyes, and broke the stern corners of his mouth.

"Well sir, a house to live in, and something to eat, I reckon, ahead of most everything else," he ventured to reply.

"He'd be a dam' pore stick of furniture if he couldn't git 'em!"

"And I suppose there'd be a fire needed to keep