money in his fingers and he need not delude himself with the idea that he was not hungry, he squared his shoulders and looked around to see if his particularly sensitive nostrils could detect from which of the surrounding places where food was being cooked exactly the most delicious odours were emanating. That recalled him to the change he held in his palm. He spread his right hand in line of vision and with the forefinger of the left slowly pushed the coins around. He was so rejoiced over his findings that he could have shouted like a small boy. The half and the quarters made a dollar; the nickels and the dimes and a few pennies for good measure to totalled eighty-seven cents.
He reflected that by judicious ordering, by making it mostly coffee with a little toast and bacon to add back bone, he would not be utterly at the mercy of the world for another day at least. Since he had thanked the Lord merely for the feel of small change in his hands, it occurred to Jamie, even in his hunger and his desire to keep near the car, that he might ride further if possible, that it would be a good thing once more to pay tribute. So again he looked to the sky, and this time with a burr that might have descended to him from the tongue of a grandfather on either side of his house, he said, right out loud there on the sidewalk of the California town: “It’s unco gude o’ you, Lord.” And when his ears heard him talking like a Scot they telegraphed the strange proceeding to his brain and Jamie, who a few minutes before had felt decidedly aggrieved, laughed aloud and, turning, started down the
