"What old man?" asked the big brother.
"My old man, oh, please, please don't go home until I see him, I'm not
hurting much, I can go."
So yielding to his whim, they carried him further away, down the sides
of the track up to an embankment or levee by the sides of the Marigny
canal. Then Titee's brother, suddenly stopping, exclaimed:
"Why, here's a cave, a regular Robinson Cruso affair."
"It's my old man's cave," cried Titee; "oh, please go in, maybe he's
dead."
There can't be much ceremony in entering a cave, there is but one thing
to do, walk in. This they did, and holding high the lantern, beheld a
strange sight. On a bed of straw and paper in one corner lay a withered,
wizened, white-bearded old man, with wide eyes staring at the
unaccustomed sight. In the corner lay a cow.
"It's my old man!" cried Titee, joyfully. "Oh, please, grandpa, I
couldn't get here to-day, it rained all morning, and when I ran away
this evening, I slipped down and broke something, and oh, grandpa, I'm
so tired and hurty, and I'm so afraid you're hungry."
So the secret of Titee's jaunts out the railroad was out. In one of his
trips around the swamp-land, he had discovered the old man dying from
cold and hunger in the fields.
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