She takes good care of me."
I felt that it would be unkind to press him further and turned to go.
"Would you like to send any word to your folks or to grandmother and the
old Squire?" I asked.
"Better not," said he with a kind of solemn sullenness. "I am out of all
that. I'm the same's dead."
I could see that he wished it so. He had not really and in so many words
acknowledged his identity; but when I turned to go he followed me to the
log fence round the garden and as I got over grasped my hand and held on
for the longest time! I thought he would never let go. His hand felt
rather cold. I suppose the sight of me and the home speech brought his
early life vividly back to him. He swallowed hard several times without
speaking, and again I saw his wrinkled face working. He let go at last,
went heavily back and picked up his hoe; and as we drove on I saw him
hoeing stolidly.
The driver said that he had cleared up the little farm and built the log
house and barn all by his own labor. For five years he had lived alone,
but later he had married the widow of a Scotch immigrant. I noticed that
this French-Canadian driver called him "M'sieur Andrews.
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