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The air of that office rang with the name of Tonk that morning. Hardly had the industrious Sarah Brown finished turning the blot upon her card into the silhouette of a dromedary by a few ingenious strokes of the pen, when the lady representing the obstinate charity came in, her lips shaped to the word Tonk. "Tonk," she said. "Late of Mud Street. She has changed her address.
In the case of M'Clubbin, the woman is said to have fallen through a hole in the floor of the room she and her three children slept in. She was admitted into the Infirmary last night, and her furniture will be sold to pay her rent " "It begins with P," said Sarah Brown. "P. Tonk, unmarried wife, of Mitten Island...." The Relieving Officer went away, for it was dinner-time.
"I am sorry to say that she will not promise to marry him, even if he does come home. But even so " Sarah Brown wrote down on Miss Tonk's card the small purple cipher that stood for hm hm. "I will make enquiries about her address," she said. But that was not the last of Tonk. Presently the red face of the Relieving Officer loomed over the index. "In the case of Plummett " he began loudly.
There, in the company of Boethius, he often considered the world, and watched, from above, the gradual life of the village. He heard the occasional tonk of cows on the hillside, the creak of a cart on the road, the faint sound of voices, blown by the wind. From his threshold he saw the afternoon fade into evening, and night look down across the hills, among the stars.
"We have already notified you three times that Tonk is having a half-pint of milk daily from the Happy Hearts, as well as an allotment from a soldier." "We stopped the groceries," roared the Relieving Officer. "But in the case of Plummett " "In the case of Tonk " persisted Sarah Brown. "She has moved from Mud Street, can you tell me her last address?"
"After Baby Week, you know, we feel bound to help all hm hm women as far as we can, regardless of other considerations " "Really you oughtn't to. Tonk is posing as a single chocolate-box-maker." Sarah Brown was rapidly becoming exasperated with everybody concerned, but not least with the evidently camouflaging Tonk. "She has a soldier at the Front," said the Happy Heart.
When the long-horned little cow had been salted and foddered in the new barn, and when her liquid eyes had taken in the surroundings of the sunny little meadow and cabin by the lonely Quah-Davic, she was well enough content, and the mellow tunk-a-tonk, tank tonk of her bell was sounded never out of ear-shot from the cabin. The meadow and the nearest fringes of the woods were range enough for her.
Ajeet objected no more, and in the new silence they could hear the shrill rasping of cicadae in the foliage of a gigantic elephant-creeper, that, like a huge python, crawled its way from branch to branch, sprawling across a dozen stately trees. From somewhere beyond was a steady "tonk! tonk! tonk!" like the beat of wood against a hollow pipe of the little green-plumaged coppersmith bird.
As I waited in the black woods I heard a sweet sound of dripping water: 'Tink tank tenk tink, Ta tink tank tenk tonk. I did not know of any spring so near, and in the hot night it was a glad find. But the sound led me to the bough of a oak-tree, where I found its source.
The inexplicable tunk-a-tonk, tunk, tonk of her deep-throated bell was disquieting to all the forest kindred; and the least move of her head at night was enough to keep the most interested prowler at a distance from the lair behind the hemlock. Till the snow fell deep, covering the dry grass on the meadows, the little cow throve well enough.
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