Part 16 (1/2)

Jimmy and Mary heard the racket, and standing on the celery hill, they saw Dannie come clattering up the lane, and as he saw them, he stood in the wagon, and waved the package over his head.

Jimmy straightened with a flourish, stuck the spade in the celery hill, and descended with great deliberation. ”I mintioned to Dannie this morning,” he said ”that it was about time I was hearin' from the Thrid Man.”

”Oh! Do you suppose it is something from Boston?” the eagerness in Mary's voice made it sound almost girlish again.

”Hunt the hatchet!” hissed Jimmy, and walked very leisurely into the cabin.

Dannie was visibly excited as he entered. ”I think ye have heard from the Thread Mon,” he said, handing Jimmy the package.

Jimmy took it, and examined it carefully. He never before in his life had an express package, the contents of which he did not know. It behooved him to get all there was out of the pride and the joy of it.

Mary laid down the hatchet so close that it touched Jimmy's hand, to remind him. ”Now what do you suppose he has sent you?” she inquired eagerly, her hand straying toward the packages.

Jimmy tested the box. ”It don't weigh much,” he said, ”but one end of it's the heaviest.”

He set the hatchet in a tiny crack, and with one rip, stripped off the cover. Inside lay a long, brown leather case, with small buckles, and in one end a little leather case, flat on one side, rounding on the other, and it, too, fastened with a buckle. Jimmy caught sight of a paper book folded in the bottom of the box, as he lifted the case. With trembling fingers he unfastened the buckles, the whole thing unrolled, and disclosed a case of leather, sewn in four divisions, from top to bottom, and from the largest of these protruded a s.h.i.+ning object. Jimmy caught this, and began to draw, and the s.h.i.+ne began to lengthen.

”Just what I thought!” exclaimed Dannie. ”He's sent ye a fine cane.”

”A hint to kape out of the small of his back the nixt time he goes promenadin' on a cow-kitcher! The divil!” exploded Jimmy.

His quick eyes had caught a word on the cover of the little book in the bottom of the box.

”A cane! A cane! Look at that, will ye?” He flashed six inches of grooved silvery handle before their faces, and three feet of s.h.i.+ning black steel, scarcely thicker than a lead pencil. ”Cane!” he cried scornfully. Then he picked up the box, and opening it drew out a little machine that shone like a silver watch, and setting it against the handle, slipped a small slide over each end, and it held firmly, and shone bravely.

”Oh, Jimmy, what is it?” cried Mary.

”Me cane!” answered Jimmy. ”Me new cane from Boston. Didn't you hear Dannie sayin' what it was? This little arrangemint is my cicly-meter, like they put on wheels, and buggies now, to tell how far you've traveled. The way this works, I just tie this silk thrid to me door k.n.o.b and off I walks, it a reeling out behind, and whin I turn back it takes up as I come, and whin I get home I take the yardstick and measure me string, and be the same token, it tells me how far I've traveled.” As he talked he drew out another s.h.i.+ning length and added it to the first, and then another and a last, fine as a wheat straw.

”These last jints I'm adding,” he explained to Mary, ”are so that if I have me cane whin I'm riding I can stritch it out and touch up me horses with it. And betimes, if I should iver break me old cane fish pole, I could take this down to the river, and there, the books call it 'whipping the water.' See! Cane, be Jasus! It's the Jim-dandiest little fis.h.i.+ng rod anybody in these parts iver set eyes on. Lord! What a beauty!”

He turned to Dannie and shook the s.h.i.+ning, slender thing before his envious eyes.

”Who gets the Black Ba.s.s now?” he triumphed in tones of utter conviction.

There is no use in taking time to explain to any fisherman who has read thus far that Dannie, the patient; Dannie, the long-suffering, felt abused. How would you feel yourself?

”The Thread Man might have sent twa,” was his thought. ”The only decent treatment he got that nicht was frae me, and if I'd let Jimmy hit him, he'd gone through the wall. But there never is anything fra me!”

And that was true. There never was.

Aloud he said, ”Dinna bother to hunt the steelyards, Mary. We winna weigh it until he brings it home.”

”Yes, and by gum, I'll bring it with this! Look, here is a picture of a man in a boat, pullin' in a whale with a pole just like this,” bragged Jimmy.

”Yes,” said Dannie. ”That's what it's made for. A boat and open water.

If ye are going to fish wi' that thing along the river we'll have to cut doon all the trees, and that will dry up the water. That's na for river fis.h.i.+ng.”

Jimmy was intently studying the book. Mary tried to take the rod from his hand.