His father
took the message and as soon as he got the sense of it he begun to get
hopeful that the kid had broke at least one leg--thinking, he must have
been, of the matched pacing stallions that once did himself such a good
turn without meaning to. His disappointment was pitiful as he turned to
us after learning that he had lit on his head but only sustained a few
bruises and sprains and concussions, with the wall-paper scraped off
here and there.
"'Struck on his head, the only part of him that seems invulnerable,'
says the fond father. 'What's that?' he yells, for the boy was talking
again. He listened a minute, and it was right entertaining to watch his
face work as the words come along. It registered all the evil that
Scotland has suffered from her oppressors since they first thought up
the name for it. Finally he begun to splutter back--it must have sounded
fine at the other end--but he had to hang up, he was that emotional.
After he got his face human again he says to us:
"'Would either of you think now that you could guess at what might have
been his dying speech? Would you guess it might be words of cheer to the
bereaved mother that nursed him, or even a word of comfort to the idiot
father that never touched whipleather to his back while he was still
husky enough to get by with it? Well, you'd guess wild.
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