United States or Guam ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
John snickered. "Got the worms?" he asked. Silvey swallowed his wrath and nodded. "Sh-sh, not so loud. You'll wake the folks. The can's on the back steps. Ain't many worms though. I hunted under the porch and down the tracks and all over. But the ground's too dry." John shook the nearly empty can disparagingly as Silvey joined him on the back lawn a moment later.
"Der sthory she tole I can's most believe him." "See here, out with the whole thing, or I'll swat yer one on the cocoanut, Humpendinck!" roared Rasco. "Yer as long-winded ez a mule thet's gone blind." "Gracious, Rasco, you vouldn't hit me, afther I ride me dree miles und more ter tole you?" wailed the German, reproachfully. "I dink me you vos mine pest friend, next to Pawnee Prown, ain't it?"
"Is that all?" says I. "Why, by the way you've been takin' on I figured on nothin' less than sudden death. But if it's only bein' fired, don't you worry. I've had that happen to me so often that I get uneasy without it. If I should wear a stripe for every time the can's been tied to me, my sleeves would look like a couple of barber's poles. Cheer up, Piddie!
In the willow copse the brandy-still was in full blast; it took one man to watch it; this was Juan Can's favorite work; for reasons of his own he liked best to do it alone; and now that he could no longer tread grapes in the tubs, he had a better chance for uninterrupted work at the still.
"I will speak to the Senora," he said; and as luck would have it, at that moment the Senora stood in the doorway, come to ask after Juan Can's health. The suggestion of the raw-hide bed struck her favorably. She herself had, in her youth, heard much of their virtues, and slept on them. "Yes," she said, "they are good. We will try it.
For three days and nights she had scarcely rested, so constant were the demands on her. Between Felipe's illness and Juan Can's, there was not a moment without something to be done, or some perplexing question to be settled, and above all, and through all, the terrible sorrow. Ramona was broken down with grief at the thought of Felipe's death.
"Has she not treated her kindly?" asked Alessandro, in a husky voice. Juan Can's pride resented this question. "Do you suppose the Senora Moreno would do an unkindness to one under her roof?" he asked loftily. "The Senorita has been always, in all things, like Senor Felipe himself. It was so that she promised the Senora Ortegna, I have heard." "Does the Senorita know all this?" asked Alessandro.
When they reached the house, the servants, who had been on the watch for days, were all gathered in the court-yard, old Marda and Juan Can heading the group; only two absent, Margarita and Luigo. They had been married some months before, and were living at the Ortegas ranch, where Luigo, to Juan Can's scornful amusement, had been made head shepherd.
The possibility of an Indian's being so born and placed that he would hesitate about becoming permanently a servant even to the Senora Moreno, did not occur to her. However, she would do nothing hastily. There would be plenty of time before Juan Can's leg was well. She would study the young man more. In the mean time, she would cause Felipe to think of the idea, and propose it.
Old woman talk to you about Jeff's going to college? I thought so. Wants to make another Dan'el Webster of him. Guess she can's far forth as Dan'el's graduatin' went." Westover tried to remember how this had been with the statesman, but could not.