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There was Coonie, now, if he set his sharp tongue going against the elder there would be no end to the trouble. He glanced up and saw the subject of his thoughts coming slowly down the road in his old buckboard. Why the Glenoro mail-carrier was called Coonie instead of Henry Greene, which was his real name, was, like all that gentleman's personal affairs, shrouded in mystery.
Well, I never," he added, noticing Coonie's bumps and bandages. "Have you been in a fight?" "Just a little fuss with Farmer Jones' dog. He's twice my size and a regular bully," Coonie answered, as he brushed by Chuck in such a hurry that he did not hear the latter call after him.
"I will be having no right to interfere, but this will be a thing that will do harm to the church and the Lord's work, and if it is talked about, " Duncan's reticence was overcoming him again after this unusual outburst. Coonie nodded in perfect comprehension. He planted his foot upon the dashboard once more. "You don't want folks to be gabbin' about yours truly up on the hill yonder?"
When the cold winds come, in the fall and winter, and the flowers are dead, the little workers stop their labor and gather together in the home they have been preparing all summer. When the snow comes, the little grass storehouse is buried snug and warm underneath the white blanket. It was just such a nest as this that Coonie watched the boys robbing of its treasure. Poor little bees!
The story of his youthful frivolity was dying out; when Coonie furnished a new variation of it every day, sensible people ceased to believe even the original. The young people, always ready to follow him, convinced themselves, though somewhat reluctantly, that he had acted rightly regarding the organ; and the older folk considered his conduct in that affair wise beyond his years.
Duncan had never before tried to exercise a restraining influence upon Coonie's tongue, though as he watched his old buckboard straying down into the valley, crossing and recrossing the road, to allow its owner to joke and gossip with this one and that, the Watchman often thought what a power for good Coonie might be in Glenoro if only his heart were touched by the grace of God.
He took that sort of thing too indifferently and one was always left in the tantalising doubt as to whether he cared or not. Coonie did not believe in casting his pearls before swine, so he cracked his long whip with the usual admonitory inquiry, "Gedap there! What're ye doin'?" Bella gave her preliminary scramble, stopped, tried again and slowly shambled off.
Old Andrew considered him a most pernicious individual and a breeder of evil in the Glen, and for that reason as well as on general principles, Coonie took a particular delight in libelling the ruling elder. He pulled up as he reached Duncan's gate. He never passed without a few words with the old man.
With our heads down, and sharp scraps of ice beating on our saddles, we urged our ponies along. Suddenly we caught sight of a great moving mass coming on with the storm. It was the immense flock of sheep, that had stampeded before the blizzard, and were drifting along across the prairie. Lenox stood up in his stirrups, and shouted to Coonie: "'Ride over there, and we'll turn them into the glen!
"You remember Farmer Jones, don't you?" "I should say I do. I'll never forget the whole family. Do you remember the time we were caught stealing the corn in his crib last fall? And, oh, that fierce dog! Indeed, I never will forget him. If it is Farmer Jones' honey, it is perfectly safe, for it makes me shiver to even think of that dog, Jack." "Oh, I knew that you would be afraid," taunted Coonie.
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