United States or Vatican City ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The hawk floating above the valley and its winged shadow disappeared together in the dense glooms of a deep gorge. Luke Todd watched them as they vanished. Suddenly he lifted his eyes. They were wide with a new speculation. An angry flare blazed in them. "What sort'n beastis is this hyar mare ez the ranger tuk up?" he asked. Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending his tremor of excitement.
As she counted them on her fingers she honored each with a shake of the head, so mournful that it might be accounted an obituary in dumb show. "I hev had no sort'n luck with this tur-r-key's brood, an' the t'other hev stole her nest away, an' I hev got sech a mean no-'count set o' chillen they can't find her. Waal! waal! waal! this comin' winter the Lord'll be obleeged ter pervide."
It was a moment of tense suspense. But it was not Crann's policy to tantalize him further, however much the process might address itself to his peculiar interpretation of pleasure. "That thar pay agent o' the mining company," he explained, "he hed some sort'n comical name oh, I remember now, Renfrow Paul Renfrow waal ye know he war shot in the knee when the miners way-laid him."
"Ben," said the girl in a low voice, "do you-uns b'lieve ef thar war passin' continual on a sure enough county road that thar cur'ous white light would kem on the old witch's face in the night-time? Ain't that a sort'n spell fur the dark an' the lonesomeness ter tarrify a few quaking dwellers round about? Surely many folks comin' an' goin' wouldn't see sech.
"That youngest one, Con Hite, was sorter mild-mannered an' meek," she afterward said, often recounting the culinary triumphs of the great day, "an' I misdoubts but he hed the deespepsy, fur he war the only one ez didn't pitch in an' eat like he war tryin' to pervide fur a week's fastin'. I reckon they all knowed what sort'n pitiful table they sets out at Mis' Cornely Hood's, t'other side the mounting, whar they expected ter stop fur supper, an' war a-goin' ter lay up suthin' agin destitution."
I never hed time ter study much 'bout sech in the day, but I dreamt 'bout ye in the night, an' all night," he laughed a little, "all sort'n mixed up things. I got ter be a plumb Joseph fur readin' dreams only I could read the same one forty diff'rent ways, an' every way made me a leetle mo' oneasy than the t'other one. I s'pose ye hev been perlite enough ter miss me a leetle," he concluded.
The word suggested illusion. "Ye ain't no snake, now nary toad nary green rabbit no sort'n jim-jam?" he stipulated apprehensively. The baby babbled gleefully, and, as if attesting its reality, delivered half a dozen strong kicks with those active plump feet, encased in the smart red socks. It suddenly occurred to the drunkard that here was a duty owing to seek out the child's parents.
She jes' stood thar by the mill-door straight an' slim an' white an' still, like she always be ter my mind like she war some sort'n sperit, stiddier a sure enough gal with her yaller hair slick an' plain, an' that old, faded, green cotton dress she mos' always wears, an' lookin' quiet out at the water o' the mill-dam ter one side, with the trees a-wavin' behind her at the open door jes' like she always be!
He bowed his chin once more upon the instrument, and again the slow drawling conversation proceeded to soft music. "Ef ye'll b'lieve me," said the advanced thinker, "I never war so conflusticated in my life ez I war when he stood up in meetin' an' told 'bout'n the tables of the law bein' on the bald! I 'lowed 'twar somewhar 'mongst some sort'n people named 'Gyptians."
They hed rigged up some sort'n peepin'-glass in the Court-House yard, an' thar war mighty nigh the whole town a-squinchin' up one eye ter examinate the consarn through it all the court off'cers, 'torney-gin'ral, an' sech, an' old Doctor Kane an' Jedge Peters, besides a whole passel o' ginerality folks. They 'lowed the glass made it 'pear bigger." "Did it?" she asked, with sudden interest.
Word Of The Day