me in her arms, an' he passed by an' saw her.He stopped an' axed her how she was doin'.An' when he was goin' away, he gave her a gold sovereign, an' he says, `Put it in th' savin's-bank for him, an' keep it theer till he's a big lad an' wants it.' It's been in th' savin's-bank ever sin'.I've got a whole pound o' ma own out at interest.
There's not many lads ha' got that."
"He must have been a good-natured fellow," commented Tembarom."It was darned bad luck him going to the Klondike.""It was good luck for thee," said Tummas, with resentment.
"Was it?" was Tembarom's unbiased reply."Well, I guess it was, one way or the other.I'm not kicking, anyhow."Tummas naturally did not know half he meant.He went on talking about Jem Temple Barholm, and as he talked his cheeks flushed and his eyes lighted.
"I would na spend that sovereign if I was starvin'.I'm going to leave it to Ann Hutchinson in ma will when I dee.I've axed questions about him reet and left ever sin' I can remember, but theer's nobody knows much.Mother says he was fine an' handsome, an' gentry through an'
through.If he'd coom into th' property, he'd ha' coom to see me again I'll lay a shillin', because I'm a cripple an' I canna spend his sovereign.If he'd coom back from th' Klondike, happen he'd ha' towd me about it." He pulled the atlas toward him, and laid his thin finger on the rubbed spot."He mun ha' been killed somewheer about here," he sighed."Somewheer here.Eh, it's funny."Tembarom watched him.There was something that rather gave you the "Willies" in the way this little cripple seemed to have taken to the dead man and worried along all these years thinking him over and asking questions and studying up the Klondike because he was killed there.It was because he'd made a kind of story of it.He'd enjoyed it in the way people enjoy stories in a newspaper.You always had to give 'em a kind of story; you had to make a story even if you were telling about a milk-wagon running away.In newspaper offices you heard that was the secret of making good with what you wrote.Dish it up as if it was a sort of story.
