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"An' me, tu!" said Mr. Blee, with a fine disregard for his recent utterances. "I've teached the chap purty nigh all he knaws an' I ban't gwaine to turn on un now, onless 't is proved blue murder. An' that Chown 's a disgrace to his cloth; an' I'd pull his ugly bat's ears on my awn behalf if I was a younger an' spryer man."
Perhaps it was real. Whatever it was, Bat's next words sent the hot fire of a man's soul leaping into his eyes. "When your boy's born, what then?" "Ah!" Bat's fists clenched at the sound of the other's ejaculation. It was the nervous clenching at a sound that threatened danger. Swift as a shot he followed up his challenge.
He had four courses of logs laid for a cabin when "Scotty" Bell came in from the hills with $1800 in coarse gold that he'd rocked out of a prospect shaft on Bat's Moose's Creek claim. Naturally Bat made general proclamation of thirst, and our town kinder dozed violently into a joyful three days' reverie, during which period of coma the recording time on Bat's lot ran out.
"They seem more like a bat's wings," said Samuel. "So they are," replied his cousin; "only thin skins, stretched along the sides from the fore legs to the hind ones. But these squirrels cannot fly far, nor stay long in the air, as bats can. They merely dart swiftly from one branch to another." "What other kinds of squirrels are there?" asked Samuel.
"The docthers think me Barney'll live, but oi thank Misther Merwyn that took him out o' the very claws uv the bloody divils, and not their bat's eyes. Faix, but he tops all yez frin's, Miss Marian, tho' ye're so could to 'im. All the spalpanes in the strates couldn't make 'im wink, yet while I was a-wailin' over Barney he was as tender-feelin' as a baby."
Jennie Dodds slipped from the room as the outer door closed upon the half-breed's departure, and returned a few minutes later with her own riding outfit, which she tossed onto the bed. "Jest you climb into them, dearie," she said. "Bat's right. Them side-saddles is sure the dickens an' all, if you got any ways to go." "But," objected Alice, "I can't run off with all your things this way!"
When Freddie Firefly saw that Mrs. Ladybug was making Benjamin Bat's mistake of thinking that his light could start a blaze, he had to smile. "Nonsense!" he cried. "I'm always very careful, Mrs. Ladybug, when I'm near your house. You know that I wouldn't want your charming children to burn up." And now Mrs. Ladybug pointed her other knitting needle at Freddie.
Wet a corner of a towel at the kettle-spout and polish him off if you like, but you won't risk his life in no bath-tubs this cold day." Miss Bat's word was law in some things, so Molly had to submit, and took Boo away, saying, loftily, as she left the room, "I shall ask father, and do it to-night, for I will not have my brother look like a pig."
In the silent country, when the trees and hedges loom dim and blurred against the rising night, and the bat's wing flutters in our face, and the land-rail's cry sounds drearily across the fields, the spell sinks deeper still into our hearts. We seem in that hour to be standing by some unseen death-bed, and in the swaying of the elms we hear the sigh of the dying day. A solemn sadness reigns.
"Look out dig with your hands, now!" So they did, and presently uncovered the spider-shaped brown hairy body, long arms and legs, bat's ears and snail's eyes of the Sand-fairy himself. Everyone drew a deep breath of satisfaction, for now of course it couldn't have been a dream. The Psammead sat up and shook the sand out of its fur. "How's your left whisker this morning?" said Anthea politely.
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