So I went down and pretty soon the doctor went up to see Skinny and Doc
Carson went too. So I was alone with him down there, but his eyes were
shut on account of his being weak from losing so much blood, and he
didn’t notice me.
Anyway, I slipped that two dollars into his shirt pocket because I
didn’t want it anyway, and I thought maybe it would be a memorandum to
him, like I said. Besides I didn’t have a right to keep money I got out
of another fellow’s pocket.
I said, “It’s me, Westy; the reason I didn’t come around was because all
the other fellows were here. But now you’re alone I want to tell you
that I’m glad you’re not hurt bad.”
He just looked at me and he said, “I went—I did it.”
First I didn’t know what to say, and then I said, “Never you mind, I
guess you were kind of crazy. We all get crazy sometimes. I was crazy
when I thought Tom Slade was lying once. Never you mind.”
“I guess I was crazy,” he just said, and then he shut his eyes and I
didn’t bother him any more—only just sat there. I don’t know what made
him tell me, but anyway, I was glad.
Pretty soon I helped him to Dr. Winters’ automobile because he limped
pretty bad. Skinny went in the automobile, too, and Doc Carson, but they
didn’t ask me. All the fellows went along the road, too, because nobody
felt like hauling the saplings that day, and _I_ didn’t, that’s sure. I
said I was going back to get Skinny’s axe, and I was glad when I was all
alone in the woods. That’s the best place to be if you’ve got any
troubles and you want to think.
And I kind of didn’t want to think about Westy, so I thought about
Skinny just to keep everything else out of my head. Because I knew it
wouldn’t ever be just the same again with Westy and I didn’t want to
think about it. In the troop it would be all right, and maybe in the
patrol too, but it wouldn’t ever be just the same again with Westy and
me.
I was glad that I’d be interested in Skinny and now I could see he was
different from all of us—kind of wonderful—I don’t know how to tell
you. His eyes were so big, and wild, and starey. And he said things in
such a funny way and he got so excited. Up at Temple Camp, afterwards,
Mr. Ellsworth told Jeb Rushmore that Skinny was inspired, but I don’t
know just what he meant. All I knew is we were even scared of him
sometimes. He never called any of us by our names—that was funny.
Pretty soon I went home. It was all dark in the woods and dandy for
thinking, and I was glad I had one friend, anyway, and that was Jim
Hawkins in the book. I guessed maybe that was the reason that Westy got
the book, because only lately I had read it, and I had told him so much
about it. All the way home I kept thinking about Westy and I wished I
had never found that out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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