Again he started toward the river. He upset an old woman's basket of
fruit. She cried out at him, and be saw that she could scarcely totter
after the rolling oranges. He halted and picked them up for her. She
mumbled something; she appeared to be a hundred years old. As he was
putting the fruit into the basket, she struck a note in her mumbling
that caused him to look her full in the face. He dropped the oranges
and sprang back. She was the hag that had taken him from the
Foundlings' Home. He hurried onward. "Great God!" he inwardly cried,
"I am covered with the slime of the past."
Without difficulty he found the captain of the Creole. "I don't know
very much about the poor fellow," he said. "I run across him nearly
six months ago fit a little place called Dura, on the coast of Costa
Rica. He was working about a sort of hotel, scrubbing and taking care
of the horses; and I guess I shouldn't have paid any attention to him
if I hadn't heard somebody say that he was an American; and it struck
me as rather out of place that an American should be scrubbing round
for those fellows, and I began to inquire about him. The landlord said
that he was brought there sick, a good while ago, and was left for
dead, but just as they were about to bury him he came to, and got up
again after a few weeks. A priest told me that his name was Henry
DeGolyer, and I said that it didn't make any difference what his name
might be, I was going to take him back to the United States, so that
if he had to clean out stables and scrub he might do it for white
folks at least; for I am a down-east Yankee, and I haven't any too
much respect for those fellows. Well, I brought him to New Orleans. I
couldn't do much for him, being a poor man myself, but I got him a
place in a restaurant, where he could get enough to eat, anyhow. I've
since heard that he used to be a newspaper man, but this was disputed.
Some people said that the newspaper DeGolyer was a black-haired
fellow. But that didn't make any difference--I did the best I could."
"And you shall he more than paid for your trouble," said DeGolyer.
"Well, we won't argue about that. If you've got any money to spare
you'd better give it to him."
"What is your name?"
"Atkins--just Cap'n Atkins."
"Where do you get your mail?"
"Well, I don't get any to speak of. A letter sent in care of the
wharfmaster will reach me all right."
DeGolyer got into a hack and was rapidly driven to the restaurant.
Young Witherspoon had completed his work and was in the kitchen,
sitting on a box with a dirty-looking bundle lying beside him.
"Come, Henry," DeGolyer said, taking his arm.
"No; not Henry--Hank. Henry's dead."
"Come, my boy."
Witherspoon looked up, and closing his eyes, pressed the tips of his
fingers against them.
"My boy."
"He got up and turned to go with DeGolyer, who held his arm, but
perceiving that he had left his bundle, pulled back and made an effort
to reach it.
"No, we don't want that," said DeGolyer.
"Yes, clothes."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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