The boy stood to watch him.
Once when the stranger had gone half across the plain he looked back.
"Poor devil," he said, smiling and stroking his moustache.

Then he looked to see if the little blue handkerchief were still safely knotted.
"Poor devil!" He smiled, and then he sighed wearily, very wearily.
And Waldo waited till the moving speck had disappeared on the horizon; then he stooped and kissed passionately a hoof-mark in the sand.

Then he called his young birds together, and put his book under his arm, and walked home along the stone wall.

There was a rare beauty to him in the sunshine that evening..