"Ye don't smoke?" inquired Kerry, commiseratingly, as his host twisted off
a great portion of home-cured tobacco. "Lord! ye'll never know what the
weed is till ye burn it. A chaw'll do when you're in the trenches an'
afraid to show the other fellers where to shoot, so that ye dare not smoke.
Ah-h-h! I've had it taste like nectar to me then; but tobacco's never
tobacco till it's burnt," and the Irishman smiled fondly upon his stumpy
black pipe.
They sat and talked over the fire (for a fire is good company in the
mountains, even of a midsummer evening) with that freedom and abandon which
the isolation, the hour, and the circumstances begot. Kerry had told his
name, his birthplace, the habits and temperament of his parents, his
present hopes and aspirations--barring one; he had even sketched an outline
of Katy--Katy, who was waiting for him to save enough to buy that little
farm in the West; and his host, listening in the unbroken silence of deep
sympathy, had not yet offered even so much as his name.
Then the bed was divided, a bundle of fern and pine boughs being disposed
in the opposite corner of the cave for the newcomer's accommodation.
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