He had forgotten to take his soft, wide-brimmed hat off; and Beaton felt a desire to sketch him just as he sat.
Dryfoos suddenly pulled himself together from the dreary absence into which he fell at first.

"Young man," he began, "maybe I've come here on a fool's errand," and Beaton rather fancied that beginning.
But it embarrassed him a little, and he said, with a shy glance aside, "I don't know what you mean." "I reckon," Dryfoos answered, quietly, "you got your notion, though.

I set that woman on to speak to you the way she done.

But if there was anything wrong in the way she spoke, or if you didn't feel like she had any right to question you up as if we suspected you of anything mean, I want you to say so." Beaton said nothing, and the old man went on.
"I ain't very well up in the ways of the world, and I don't pretend to be.

All I want is to be fair and square with everybody.