United States or Côte d'Ivoire ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Shtop," cried she, scowling through her "spetty-curls," as she saw three white paws and one blue one go tripping over the road. "Shtop!" But the paws kept on. "O, Diny," said Flyaway, as pussy's tail disappeared round a corner, "O, Diny, her don't want to go to heaven!" Then Flyaway sat down in the sand, and pulled off one of the big boots.
They lay in wait for dinies, they publicly digested dinies, and they went pouring down into any small hole in the ground from which a diny had appeared or into which one vanished. They were superior to traps. They did not have to be set or emptied. They did not need bait. They were self-maintaining and even self-reproducing except that snakes when overfed tend to be less romantic than when hungry.
Moira stared, incredulous. Then, out of the hole from which the diny had leaped, a dark round head appeared. It could have been Timothy. But he saw that this diny was disposed of. That was that. Timothy if it was Timothy withdrew to search further among diny tunnels about the presidential mansion. Half an hour later the president told the solicitor general of Eire about it. He was bitter.
Timothy must have escaped and as a faithful snake, loyal to his duty, he'd wriggled straight back to the presidential mansion. Like all Eire, he undoubtedly knew of the pious tradition that St. Patrick had brought the snakes to Eire, and he wasn't one to let St. Patrick down. So he'd returned and doubtless patrolled all the diny tunnels in the sagging structure.
But it's notorious that porcupines hang around men's houses and eat the handles of their tools for the salt in them, ignoring' the poor man whose sweat had the salt in it when he was laborin' to earn a livin' for his family. And when a thing acts like a porcupine, a porcupine it is and nothing else! So a diny is a Eirean porcupine, native to the planet, and no man can deny it!
It was a diny some eight inches long, in enough of a hurry to say that something appalling was after it. It landed before the president and took off again for some far horizon. Then something sinuous and black dropped out of a tree upon it and instantly violent action took place in a patch of dust. A small cloud arose. The president watched, with morbid interest, as the sporting event took place.
"And when it was over, there was Moira starin' dazed-like from the porch, and the be-damned snake picked up the diny it'd killed and started off to dine on it in private. But I was in the way. So the snake waited, polite, with the diny in its mouth, for me to move on.
But it had tooth marks on it. Some diny, at some time, had gnawed casually upon it as if it were soft as cheese. Faint cheering could be heard in the distance as the ground-cars carrying the committee neared the city of Tara. To those in the vehicles, it seemed incredible that anybody should dare to rejoice within at least two light-years of Sean O'Donohue as he was at this moment.
A gust of wind lifted the frizzles on Dinah's forehead, but that was all. "O dee, dee, dee! you don't hear nuffin 't all, Diny," said Flyaway the only sensible remark she had made that day. It was of no use talking to Dinah; so she began to talk to herself. "What you matter, Flywer Clifford?" said she, scowling to keep her courage up. "What you matter?"
"I'm tired out and sleepy out," wailed the young traveller, the tears rolling over the rims of her "spetty-curls," "all sleepy out; and I can't get rested 'thout my muvver!" She sat down and hid her head in her black dolly's bosom. "Diny, you got some ears? We wasn't here by-fore!" This was all the way she had of saying she was lost. The sky suddenly grew dark; a shower was coming up.
Word Of The Day