Part 10 (1/2)

Mary's face flushed slightly. ”Depends on whin he comes,” she said. ”Of course, if I am cleaning house, or busy with something I can't put off----”

”Sure!” cried Jimmy. ”I'd ask you before I brought him, because I'd want him to have something spicial. Some of this ham, and horse radish, and maple syrup to begin with, and thin your fried spring chicken and your stewed squirrel is a drame, Mary. n.o.body iver makes turtle soup half so rich as yours, and your green peas in cream, and asparagus on toast is a rivilation--don't you rimimber 'twas Father Michael that said it? I ought to be able to find mushrooms in a few weeks, and I can taste your rhubarb pie over from last year. Gee! But I wish he'd come in strawberrying! Berries from the vines, b.u.t.ter in the crust, crame you have to bate to make it smooth--talk about shortcake!”

”What's wrong wi' cherry cobbler?” asked Dannie.

”Or blackberry pie?”

”Or greens cooked wi' bacon?”

”Or chicken pie?”

”Or catfish, rolled in cornmeal and fried in ham fat?”

”Or guineas stewed in cream, with hard-boiled eggs in the gravy?”

”Oh, stop!” cried the delighted Mary. ”It makes me dead tired thinkin'

how I'll iver be cookin' all you'll want. Sure, have him come, and both of you can pick out the things you like the best, and I'll fix thim for him. Pure, fresh stuff might be a trate to a city man. When Dolan took sister Katie to New York with him, his boss sent them to a five-dollar-a-day house, and they thought they was some up. By the third day poor Katie was cryin' for a square male. She couldn't touch the b.u.t.ter, the eggs made her sick, and the cold-storage meat and chicken never got nearer her stomach than her nose. So she just ate fish, because they were fresh, and she ate, and she ate, till if you mintion New York to poor Katie she turns pale, and tastes fish. She vows and declares that she feeds her chickens and hogs better food twice a day than people fed her in New York.”

”I'll bet my new milk pail the grub we eat ivery day would be a trate that would raise him,” said Jimmy. ”Provided his taste ain't so depraved with saltpeter and chalk he don't know fresh, pure food whin he tastes it. I understand some of the victims really don't.”

”Your new milk pail?” questioned Mary.

”That's what!” said Jimmy. ”The next time I go to town I'm goin' to get you two.”

”But I only need one,” protested Mary. ”Instead of two, get me a new dishpan. Mine leaks, and smears the stove and table.”

”Be Gorry!” sighed Jimmy. ”There goes me tongue, lettin' me in for it again. I'll look over the skins, and if any of thim are ripe, I'll get you a milk pail and a dishpan the nixt time I go to town. And, by gee!

If that dandy big c.o.o.n hide I got last fall looks good, I'm going to comb it up, and work the skin fine, and send it to the Thrid Man, with me complimints. I don't feel right about him yet. Wonder what his name railly is, and where he lives, or whether I killed him complate.”

”Any dry goods man in town can tell ye,” said Dannie.

”Ask the clerk in the hotel,” suggested Mary.

”You've said it,” cried Jimmy. ”That's the stuff! And I can find out whin he will be here again.”

Two hours more they faithfully worked on the garden, and then Jimmy began to grow restless.

”Ah, go on!” cried Mary. ”You have done all that is needed just now, and more too. There won't any fish bite to-day, but you can have the pleasure of stringin' thim poor sufferin' worms on a hook and soaking thim in the river.”

”'Sufferin' worms!' Sufferin' Job!” cried Jimmy. ”What nixt? Go on, Dannie, get your pole!”

Dannie went. As he came back Jimmy was sprinkling a thin layer of earth over the bait in the can. ”Why not come along, Mary?” he suggested.

”I'm not done planting my seeds,” she answered. ”I'll be tired when I am, and I thought that place wasn't fixed for me yet.”

”We can't fix that till a little later,” said Jimmy. ”We can't tell where it's going to be gra.s.sy and shady yet, and the wood is too wet to fix a sate.”

”Any kind of a sate will do,” said Mary. ”I guess you better not try to make one out of the Kingfisher stump. If you take it out it may change the pool and drive away the Ba.s.s.”

”Sure!” cried Jimmy. ”What a head you've got! We'll have to find some other stump for a sate.”