me'll be friends." He stopped a moment, and seemed to be taking Tembarom in with thoroughness."I could get a lot out o' thee," he said after the inspection.
"A lot of what?" Tembarom felt as though he would really like to hear.
"A lot o' things I want to know about.I wish I'd lived th' life tha's lived, clemmin' or no clemmin'.Tha's seen things goin' on every day o' thy loife.""Well, yes, there's been plenty going on, plenty," Tembarom admitted.
"I've been lying here for ten year'," said Tummas, savagely."An' I've had nowt i' th' world to do an' nowt to think on but what I could mak'
foak tell me about th' village.But nowt happens but this chap gettin'
drunk an' that chap deein' or losin' his place, or wenches gettin'
married or havin' childer.I know everything that happens, but it's nowt but a lot o' women clackin'.If I'd not been a cripple, I'd ha'
been at work for mony a year by now, 'arnin' money to save by an' go to 'Meriker.""You seem to be sort of stuck on America.How's that?""What dost mean?"
"I mean you seem to like it."
"I dunnot loike it nor yet not loike it, but I've heard a bit more about it than I have about th' other places on th' map.Foak goes there to seek their fortune, an' it seems loike there's a good bit doin'.""Do you like to read newspapers?" said Tembarom, inspired to his query by a recollection of the vision of things "doin'" in the Sunday Earth.
"Wheer'd I get papers from?" the boy asked testily."Foak like us hasn't got th' brass for 'em.""I'll bring you some New York papers," promised Tembarom, grinning a little in anticipation."And we'll talk about the news that's in them.
The Sunday Earth is full of pictures.I used to work on that paper myself.""Tha did?" Tummas cried excitedly."Did tha help to print it, or was it th' one tha sold i' th' streets?""I wrote some of the stuff in it."
"Wrote some of th' stuff in it? Wrote it thaself ? How could tha, a common chap like thee?" he asked, more excited still, his ferret eyes snapping.
"I don't know how I did it," Tembarom answered, with increased cheer and interest in the situation." It wasn't high-brow sort of work."Tummas leaned forward in his incredulous eagerness.
"Does tha mean that they paid thee for writin' it--paid thee?""I guess they wouldn't have done it if they'd been Lancashire, "Tembarom answered." But they hadn't much more sense than I had.They paid me twenty-five dollars a week-- that's five pounds.""I dunnot believe thee," said Tummas, and leaned back on his pillow short of breath.
"I didn't believe it myself till I'd paid my board two weeks and bought a suit of clothes with it," was Tembarom's answer, and he chuckled as he made it.
But Tummas did believe it.This, after he had recovered from the shock, became evident.The curiosity in his face intensified itself;his eagerness was even vaguely tinged with something remotely resembling respect.It was not, however, respect for the money which had been earned, but for the store of things "doin'" which must have been required.It was impossible that this chap knew things undreamed of.
"Has tha ever been to th' Klondike ? " he asked after a long pause.
"No.I've never been out of New York."
Tummas seemed fretted and depressed.
"Eh, I'm sorry for that.I wished tha'd been to th' Klondike.I want to be towd about it," he sighed.He pulled the atlas toward him and found a place in it.
"That theer's Dawson," he announced.Tembarom saw that the region of the Klondike had been much studied.It was even rather faded with the frequent passage of searching fingers, as though it had been pored over with special curiosity.
"There's gowd-moines theer," revealed Tummas."An' theer's welly newt else but snow an' ice.A young chap as set out fro' here to get theer froze to death on th' way.""How did you get to hear about it?"
"Ann she browt me a paper onet." He dug under his pillow, and brought out a piece of newspaper, worn and frayed and cut with age and usage.
"This heer's what's left of it." Tembarom saw that it was a fragment from an old American sheet and that a column was headed "The Rush for the Klondike.""Why didna tha go theer?" demanded Tummas.He looked up from his fragment and asked his question with a sudden reflectiveness, as though a new and interesting aspect of things had presented itself to him.
"I had too much to do in New York," said Tembarom."There's always something doing in New York, you know."Tummas silently regarded him a moment or so.
"It's a pity tha didn't go," he said." Happen tha'd never ha' coom back."Tembarom laughed the outright laugh.
"Thank you," he answered.
Tummas was still thinking the matter over and was not disturbed.
"I was na thinkin' o' thee," he said in an impersonal tone."I was thinkin' o' t' other chap.If tha'd gon i'stead o' him, he'd ha' been here i'stead o' thee.Eh, but it's funny." And he drew a deep breath like a sigh having its birth in profundity of baffled thought.
Both he and his evident point of view were "funny" in the Lancashire sense, which does not imply humor, but strangeness and the unexplainable.Singular as the phrasing was, Tembarom knew what he meant, and that he was thinking of the oddity of chance.Tummas had obviously heard of "poor Jem" and had felt an interest in him.
"You're talking about Jem Temple Barholm I guess," he said.Perhaps the interest he himself had felt in the tragic story gave his voice a tone somewhat responsive to Tummas's own mood, for Tummas, after one more boring glance, let himself go.His interest in this special subject was, it revealed itself, a sort of obsession.The history of Jem Temple Barholm had been the one drama of his short life.
"Aye, I was thinkin' o' him," he said."I should na ha' cared for th'
Klondike so much but for him."
"But he went away from England when you were a baby.""Th' last toime he coom to Temple Barholm wur when I wur just born.
Foak said he coom to ax owd Temple Barholm if he'd help him to pay his debts, an' th' owd chap awmost kicked him out o' doors.Mother had just had me, an' she was weak an' poorly an' sittin' at th' door wi'