Part 8 (1/2)
”Oh, for pity sake, don't pile up work enough to kill a horse,” cried Jimmy. ”Ain't you ever happy unless you are workin'?”
”Yes,” said Dannie. ”Sometimes I find a book that suits me, and sometimes the fish bite, and sometimes it's in the air.”
”Git the condinser” said Jimmy. ”And that reminds me, Mary, Dannie smelled spring in the air to-day.”
”Well, what if he did?” questioned Mary. ”I can always smell it. A little later, when the sap begins to run in all the trees, and the buds swell, and the ice breaks up, and the wild geese go over, I always scent spring; and when the catkins bloom, then it comes strong, and I just love it. Spring is my happiest time. I have more news, too!”
”Don't spring so much at wance!” cried Jimmy, ”you'll spoil my appet.i.te.”
”I guess there's no danger,” replied Mary.
”There is,” said Jimmy. ”At laste in the fore siction. 'Appe' is Frinch, and manes atin'. 't.i.te' is Irish, and manes drinkin'. Appet.i.te manes atin' and drinkin' togither. 't.i.te' manes drinkin' without atin', see?”
”I was just goin' to mintion it meself,” said Mary, ”it's where you come in strong. There's no danger of anybody spoilin' your drinkin', if they could interfere with your atin'. You guess, Dannie.”
”The dominick hen is setting,” ventured Dannie, and Mary's face showed that he had blundered on the truth.
”She is,” affirmed Mary, pouring the tea, ”but it is real mane of you to guess it, when I've so few new things to tell. She has been setting two days, and she went over fifteen fresh eggs to-day. In just twinty-one days I will have fiftane the cunningest little chickens you ever saw, and there is more yet. I found the nest of the gray goose, and there are three big eggs in it, all buried in feathers. She must have stripped her breast almost bare to cover them. And I'm the happiest I've been all winter. I hate the long, lonely, shut-in time. I am going on a delightful spree. I shall help boil down sugar-water and make maple syrup. I shall set hins, and geese, and turkeys. I shall make soap, and clane house, and plant seed, and all my flowers will bloom again. Goody for summer; it can't come too soon to suit me.”
”Lord! I don't see what there is in any of those things,” said Jimmy.
”I've got just one sign of spring that interests me. If you want to see me caper, somebody mention to me the first rattle of the Kingfisher.
Whin he comes home, and house cleans in his tunnel in the embankment, and takes possession of his stump in the river, the nixt day the Black Ba.s.s locates in the deep water below the shoals. THIN you can count me in. There is where business begins for Jimmy boy. I am going to have that Ba.s.s this summer, if I don't plant an acre of corn.”
”I bet you that's the truth!” said Mary, so quickly that both men laughed.
”Ahem!” said Dannie. ”Then I will have to do my plowing by a heidlicht, so I can fish as much as ye do in the day time. I hereby make, enact, and enforce a law that neither of us is to fish in the Ba.s.s hole when the other is not there to fish also. That is the only fair way. I've as much richt to him as ye have.”
”Of course!” said Mary. ”That is a fair way. Make that a rule, and kape it. If you both fish at once, it's got to be a fair catch for the one that lands it; but whoever catches it, _I_ shall ate it, so it don't much matter to me.”
”You ate it!” howled Jimnmy. ”I guess not. Not a taste of that fish, when he's teased me for years? He's as big as a whale. If Jonah had had the good fortune of falling in the Wabash, and being swallowed by the Black Ba.s.s, he could have ridden from Peru to Terre Haute, and suffered no inconvanience makin' a landin'. Siven pounds he'll weigh by the steelyard I'll wager you.”
”Five, Jimmy, five,” corrected Dannie.
”Siven!” shouted Jimmy. ”Ain't I hooked him repeated? Ain't I seen him broadside? I wonder if thim domn lines of mine have gone and rotted.”
He left his supper, carrying his chair, and standing on it he began rummaging the top shelf of the cupboard for his box of tackle. He knocked a bottle from the shelf, but caught it in mid-air with a dexterous sweep.
”Spirits are movin',” cried Jimmy, as he restored the camphor to its place. He carried the box to the window, and became so deeply engrossed in its contents that he did not notice when Dannie picked up his rat bag and told him to come on and help skin their day's catch. Mary tried to send him, and he was going in a minute, but the minute stretched and stretched, and both of them were surprised when the door opened and Dannie entered with an armload of spiles, and the rat-skinning was all over. So Jimmy went on unwinding lines, and sharpening hooks, and talking fish; while Dannie and Mary cleaned the spiles, and figured on how many new elders must be cut and prepared for more on the morrow; and planned the sugar making.
When it was bedtime, and Dannie had gone an Jimmy and Mary closed their cabin for the night, Mary stepped to the window that looked on Dannie's home to see if his light was burning. It was, and clear in its rays stood Dannie, stripping yard after yard of fine line through his fingers, and carefully examining it. Jimmy came and stood beside her as she wondered.
”Why, the domn son of the Rainbow,” he cried, ”if he ain't testing his fish lines!”
The next day Mary Malone was rejoicing when the men returned from trapping, and gathering and cleaning the sugar-water troughs. There had been a robin at the well.
”Kape your eye on, Mary” advised Jimmy. ”If she ain't watched close from this time on, she'll be settin' hins in snowdrifts, and pouring biling water on the daffodils to sprout them.”
On the first of March, five killdeers flew over in a flock, and a half hour later one straggler crying piteously followed in their wake.