stration: A National Pike Freighter]

CHAPTER FIVE

No wonder Cain went to the bad
And left no cause to praise him;
No neighbors, who had ever had
Boys of their own, came telling Ad
And Eve how they should raise him.

"Al-f-u-r-d" learned with his first swimming lesson that kinship does
not lend immunity; in fact, Lin asserted that Cousin Charley's kinship
was only a cloak of deception. However, the more Cousin Charley teased
the younger boy the greater "Al-f-u-r-d's" admiration and yearning for
his companionship.

Lin cautioned "Al-f-u-r-d" to shun Cousin Charley as he would a "wiper."
Lin could never pronounce her v's. When she went to the grocery and
asked for "winegar," the young clerk laughed outright. The next visit
Lin simply said:

"Smell the jug and gin me a quart."

When the mother admitted she feared Cousin Charley would ruin
"Al-f-u-r-d's" disposition, Lin followed with the declaration that
Cousin Charley "layed awake nights makin' up lies about "Al-f-u-r-d" to
git his pap to whup him."

Lin said: "Why, he don't do a thing all the live-long day but git
'Al-f-u-r-d' in scrapes and muss his curls."

After the swimming hole experience "Al-f-u-r-d's" parent forbade Cousin
Charley the house. Uncle Bill, who was responsible for Cousin Charley's
being, also ordered Cousin Charley to seek a home elsewhere, enforcing
the order by advising Cousin Charley that he had done all that he
intended to do for him.

In forceful words Cousin Charley was told that he must "dig for
himself," that "he could not stay anywhere no matter how good the job,
that he always got into some kind of a scrape and his father was tired
of it."

"Go out in the world and dig for yourself like I did. Then you'll hold a
job when you get one."

Cousin Charley took genuine delight in being thus exiled. He endeavored
to work on the sympathies of all with whom he conversed, reporting that
Uncle John and Aunt Mary had driven him from their house and that his
father had driven him from home, advising him to dig for himself.

Charley dwelt so upon the phrase "dig for yourself" that it became a
sort of cant saying.

Cousin Charley called at "Al-f-u-r-d's" home to gather his essential
personal effects. His woe-begone looks so touched "Al-f-u-r-d" that
tears more than once filled his eyes as the elder boy continued his
preparations to leave. "Al-f-u-r-d's" sorrow so touched the mother that
she began to rele