"Nope. Kim f'm S'loois. But still, I got that feelin' abaout Italy. Simlike I'd be--oh, sorta at home tha'. Had that same feelin' ev' since Unc' Bernique begand to tell me abaout Italy. I'm a-goin' tha', tew, some day, all righty," he concluded at last, waking up from his little dream slowly. "Goin' to be long over to Poetical, Mist' Steerin'?" he diverged again, with his lively mental agility. "No, son. From Poetical I am going on to"--Bruce stopped to gather strength to project the word with the large and cadenced inflection he had enjoyed in the hill farm people,--"going on to Canaan!" "Gre't gosh!" said the boy, and something in the way he said it made Bruce look at him quickly. Piney's brows were lifted and his lips were pulled back. He seemed to try to be as much impressed as Bruce expected him to be. To Steering this sort of comradeship was growing golden. "Well, now," he said, playing with the little joy of being understood, "haven't they the court-house at Canaan? And the railroad? And haven't they Miss Betsy,--or Miss--Miss----" "Sally." "Ah, yes, Sally! Know Sally, son?" "Ev'body in the Tigmores knows her." "I am beginning to want to know Sally myself." Bruce let his eyes go drowsing toward the pale river up which the slow rain was beating, and talked foolishness idly: "Red-cheeked Sally! Freckled Sally! Roly-poly Sally! What's a Missouri girl like anyway, Piney?" "Wy, people think she's purty," protested the boy with a quick palpitant shyness, "an' most people l----," he stopped trying to talk, laughing brusquely and flushing with a very young man's self-consciousness. "All of which goes to prove me an ass," cried Bruce, "for talking about a lady whom I have never seen." Looking repentantly at Piney, he felt a sudden ache for him. He was not very familiar with conditions in Canaan, but it occurred to him suddenly that even in Canaan there might be social gradations, and that the tramp-boy, rare little chap though he seemed to be, was probably miles away from the daughter of the promoter, Mr. Crittenton Madeira. "I retract, Piney," he added gravely. "Aw!--not as I keer whut you say abaout her,--or whut anybody says." Piney slashed at some brilliant sumach by the wayside and his mobile lips jerked and quivered. "I should have supposed that she was older--well, than you," said Bruce, trying to set himself right. "May be in what she knows,--aint in what she feels,--not as I keer----" The boy was so deliciously new to his own emotions that they flashed away beyond his control, minute by minute. His eyes looked misty, with a little spark of high light cutting bravely through. He would not finish his sentence. "Did Unc' Bernique say whend he's comin' back to Canaan?" he asked moodily. "No, he didn't, though I urged him to. That's a fine old man, Piney." Piney's eyes softened beautifully. "Takes mighty good keer of me," he said. "Is he kin to you?"