I made up my mind I would take the chances, an’ one night I put on my best bib an’ tucker an’ started fer her house.  I had to go ‘cross the town to where she lived, an’ the farther I walked the fiercer I got—­havin’ made up my mind—­so ’t putty soon I was travelin’ ’s if I was ’fraid some other feller’d git there ‘head o’ me.  Wa’al, it was Sat’day night, an’ the stores was all open, an’ the streets was full o’ people, an’ I had to pull up in the crowd a little, an’ I don’t know how it happened in pertic’ler, but fust thing I knew I run slap into a woman with a ban’box, an’ when I looked ’round, there was a mil’nery store in full blast an’ winders full o’ bunnits.  Wa’al, sir, do you know what I done?  Ye don’t.  Wa’al, the’ was a hoss car passin’ that run three mile out in the country in a diff’rent direction f’m where I started fer, an’ I up an’ got onto that car, an’ rode the length o’ that road, an’ got off an’ walked back—­an’ I never went near her house f’m that day to this, an’ that,” said David, “was the nearest I ever come to havin’ another pardner to my joys an’ sorro’s.”

“That was pretty near, though,” said John, laughing.

“Wa’al,” said David, “mebbe Prov’dence might ‘a’ had some other plan fer stoppin’ me ’fore I smashed the hull rig, if I hadn’t run into the mil’nery shop, but as it was, that fetched me to a stan’still, an’ I never started to run agin.”

They drove on for a few minutes in silence, which John broke at last by saying, “I have been wondering how you got on after your wife died and left you with a little child.”

“That was where Mis’ Jones come in,” said David.  “Of course I got the best nurse I could, an’ Mis’ Jones ’d run in two three times ev’ry day an’ see ‘t things was goin’ on as right ’s they could; but it come on that I had to be away f’m home a good deal, an’ fin’ly, come fall, I got the Joneses to move into a bigger house, where I could have a room, an’ fixed it up with Mis’ Jones to take charge o’ the little feller right along.  She hadn’t but one child, a girl of about thirteen, an’ had lost two little ones, an’ so between havin’ took to my little mite of a thing f’m the fust, an’ my makin’ it wuth her while, she was willin’, an’ we went on that way till—­the’ wa’n’t no further occasion fur ’s he was concerned, though I lived with them a spell longer when I was at home, which wa’n’t very often, an’ after he died I was gone fer a good while.  But before that time, when I was at home, I had him with me all the time I could manage.  With good care he’d growed up nice an’ bright, an’ as big as the average, an’ smarter ‘n a steel trap.  He liked bein’ with me better ’n anybody else, and when I c’d manage to have him I couldn’t bear to have him out o’ my sight.  Wa’al, as I told you, he got to be most seven year old.  I’d had to go out to Chicago, an’ one day I got a telegraph sayin’ he was putty sick—­an’ I took the fust train East.  It was ‘long in March, an’ we had a breakdown, an’ run