Andy, forgetting his pique at their first disbelief, came forlornly back and stood with them.
The Old Man--the thing could not be true! To every man of them his presence, conjured by the impending tragedy, was almost a palpable thing.

His stocky figure seemed almost to stand in their midst; he looked at them with his whimsical eyes, which had the radiating crows-feet of age, humor and habitual squinting against sun and wind; the bald spot on his head, the wrinkling shirt-collar that seldom knew a tie, the carpet slippers which were his favorite footgear because they were kind to his bunions, his husky voice, good-naturedly complaining, were poignantly real to them at that moment.

Then Irish mentally pictured him lying maimed, dying, perhaps, in a far-off hospital among strangers, and swore.
"If he's got to die, it oughta be here, where folks know him and--where he knows--" Irish was not accustomed to giving voice to his deeper feelings, and he blundered awkwardly over it.
"I never did go much on them darned hospitals, anyway," Weary observed gloomily.

"He oughta be home, where folks can look after him.

Mam-ma! It sure is a fright." "I betche Chip and the Little Doctor won't get there in time," Happy Jack predicted, with his usual pessimism.