Giving up his jacket leaves Cricket very slightly chilly, but he's about to start up the makeshift furnace under each of the two stills, so he won't suffer for long. Besides, this poor kid's been out all night in the cold. He shakes hands gently. "Good t'meet you, Hugh."
Leaving his bucket where it is, he gets out a box of safety matches, striking one to light the tinder in a furnace and blowing on it to get the fire to catch. It's weird that the kid doesn't know where he is at all, but the more he speaks, the more Cricket can hear that he's not from Franklin. "Which country? Well, we're in the United States. In Virginia, right up against the Blue Ridge mountains."
He repeats the lighting process on the second furnace with a frown, and then sits where he is for a moment, on the hard-packed earth. "Who brought you here?"
Because that's the only sensible reason he can think of why a kid of Hugh's apparent age wouldn't know what country he's in. Someone carried him here somehow without consulting him, and probably not his parents. Even bad parents would answer if their child asked where they were going.
no subject
Leaving his bucket where it is, he gets out a box of safety matches, striking one to light the tinder in a furnace and blowing on it to get the fire to catch. It's weird that the kid doesn't know where he is at all, but the more he speaks, the more Cricket can hear that he's not from Franklin. "Which country? Well, we're in the United States. In Virginia, right up against the Blue Ridge mountains."
He repeats the lighting process on the second furnace with a frown, and then sits where he is for a moment, on the hard-packed earth. "Who brought you here?"
Because that's the only sensible reason he can think of why a kid of Hugh's apparent age wouldn't know what country he's in. Someone carried him here somehow without consulting him, and probably not his parents. Even bad parents would answer if their child asked where they were going.