United States or Dominica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Have you never noticed those tin pans, upside down, on top of the posts on which the corncrib rests? How could a mouse or a squirrel ever climb past one of those?" "There are ways," Grumpy Weasel said wisely. "I doubt it," Fatty replied. "I don't believe the trick can be done."
The improvidence of it shocked him. Kenny retraced his footsteps in a blaze of indignation and made a bonfire on the corncrib floor to which in a reckless spasm of disgust he consigned the remainder of his supper. The crazy structure caught at once, with a smell of cheese.
The farmer, finding the name offensively rustic, roared into the corncrib that Kenny was a hobo without future hope of heaven. He and the corncrib, it seemed, knew the genus well. Indeed, he looked in the corncrib for hope-lorn hoboes with the same regularity that he looked in the hay for eggs. He added some infuriated statistics about early rising. "Come out of that!" he yelled.
It isn't egg time yet, and it won't be for a long time. Take my advice and just forget about impossible things. I'm going over to Farmer Brown's corncrib. Corn may not be as good as eggs, but it is very good and very filling. Better come along," said Sammy. "Not this morning, thank you. Some other time, perhaps," replied Blacky. He watched Sammy disappear through the trees.
Five minutes later Kenny's corncrib was a mass of flames and Silas had appeared at the end of the field roaring incomprehensible profanity. Kenny, waiting, whistled softly with a defiant air of calm. The corncrib was his. He had a perfect right to burn it. He meant to tell Silas this in a quiet voice, but lost his temper and thundered it instead.
And the big-hearted kindness of him, thrashing the runaway into sense. Irish temper there! Kenny felt a passionate thrill of pride in his offspring. Yes, Brian was like his father, thank God, even to the Celtic curse of homesickness. "But to think of him," he marveled in a wave of tenderness, "living in a corncrib on seven cents a day!"
"That's the first real idea you ever had in your life!" Grumpy exclaimed which was as near to thanking a person as he was ever known to come. As soon as Grumpy Weasel left to chase the squirrels and mice that he had frightened away from the corncrib Fatty Coon hurried into the building through a hole in the floor which nobody knew but himself.
At last he noticed a small wooden building adjoining the garden, the door of which stood half open, revealing ears of corn from the preceding season lying in a heap upon the floor. He resolved to enter this rude corncrib knowing it would contain many apertures, and see and hear what was being done. He told the others his plan.
On Saturday afternoons, when the work about the barns was done for the day and the other employees had gone away, he went to sit on the steps of a corncrib with the bottle in his hand. In the winter he went to sit by the kitchen fire in a little house below the apple orchard where he and the other employees slept.
"I told mamma on you, that's what I did!" The grinding noise kept up for a moment or two longer, and the laughter of the two little boys could be heard. Then Mrs. Bunker, followed by Rose, went into the corncrib. Mrs. Bunker saw a curious sight. Standing at one side of the corn-shelling machine was Russ, turning the big wheel, which went round quite easily.
Word Of The Day