ants and kangaroos, and the civet-cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail — I forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn’t you like to know about them, Luke?”
“Nay, Miss, I’n got to keep count o’ the flour an’ corn; I can’t do wi’ knowin’ so many things besides my work. That’s what brings folks to the gallows — knowin’ everything but what they’n got to get their bread by. An’ they’re mostly lies, I think, what’s printed i’ the books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i’ the streets.”
“Why, you’re like my brother Tom, Luke,” said Maggie, Maillot Seattle Sounders Pas CHer wishing to turn the conversation agreeably; “Tom’s not fond of reading. I love Tom so dearly, Luke — better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell him everything he doesn’t know. But I think Tom’s clever, for all he doesn’t like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit-pens.”
“Ah,” said Luke, “but he’ll be fine an’ vexed, as the rabbits are all dead.”
“Dead!” screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the corn. “Oh dear, Luke! What! the lop-eared one, and the spotted Minnesota Vikings Barn doe that Tom spent all his money to buy?”
“As dead as moles,” said Luke, fetching his comparison from the unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall.
“Oh dear, Luke,” said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the big tears rolled down her cheek; “Tom told me to take care of Olympique De Marseille Barn ’em, and I forgot. What shall I do?”
“Well, you see, Miss, they were in that far tool-house, an’ it was nobody’s business to see to ’em. I reckon Master Tom told Harry to feed ’em, but there’s no countin’ on Harry; he’s an offal creatur as iver come about the primises, he is. He remembers nothing but his own inside — an’ I wish it’ud gripe him.”
“Oh, Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day; but how could I, when they didn’t come into my head, you know? Oh, he will be so angry Ostaa Halpa Nike Air Max 2014 Naisten with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his rabbits, and so am I sorry. Oh, what shall I do?”
“Don’t you fret, Miss,” said Luke, soothingly; “they’re nash things, them lop-eared rabbits; they’d happen ha’ died, if they’d been fed. Things out o’ natur niver thrive: God A’mighty doesn’t like ’em. He made the rabbits’ ears to lie back, an’ it’s nothin’ but contrairiness to make ’em hing down like a mastiff dog’s. Master Tom ‘ull know better nor buy such things another time. Don’t you Halpa North Face Vest fret, Miss. Will you come along home wi’ me, and see my wife? I’m a-goin’ this minute.”
The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie’s grief, and her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke’s side to his pleasant cottage, which stood with its Liverpool Drakt Barn apple and Detroit Lions Kvinnor pear trees, and with the added dignity of a lean-to pigsty, at the other end of the Mill fields. Mrs. Moggs, Luke |
