"You've got to come with me," he said, with kind severity. "You're a
good boy, but your folks have let you run wrong. You've been good to
me, and you said you would get me back my boy and save him from those
thieves, and I believe now that you meant it. Now you're just coming
back with us to the farm and the cows and the river, and you can eat
all you want and live with us, and never, never see this unclean,
wicked city again."
Snipes looked up keenly from under the rim of his hat and rubbed one
of his muddy feet over the other as was his habit. The young
countryman, greatly puzzled, and the older man smiling kindly, waited
expectantly in silence. From outside came the sound of the car-bells
jangling, and the rattle of cabs, and the cries of drivers, and all
the varying rush and turmoil of a great metropolis. Green fields, and
running rivers, and fruit that did not grow in wooden boxes or brown
paper cones, were myths and idle words to Snipes, but this "unclean,
wicked city" he knew.
"I guess you're too good for me," he said, with an uneasy laugh. "I
guess little old New York's good enough for me."
"What!" cried the old man, in the tones of greatest concern. "You
would go back to that den of iniquity, surely not,--to that thief
Perceval?"
"Well," said the trailer, slowly, "and he's not such a bad lot,
neither.
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