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As he disappeared Bill slipped from under the canvas and limped stiffly around the corner of the stable, and none too soon, for as Creed returned to the sled for the oats and blankets the cabin door opened, and a tall, angular woman appeared, carrying an empty water-pail. "So ye've come back, hev ye?" she inquired in a shrewish voice. "Well, ye're jest in time to fetch the water an' wood.
He filled the water-pail from the bucket for her, which she took up and was about to go when he found courage to say: "Won't you stay a minute, Anna, I want to talk to you. "Anna, have you any relatives?" "Not now." "But have you no friends who knew you and loved you before you came to us?" "I want nothing of my friends, Mr. David, but their good will."
More valuable it was than a thousand tons of solid gold. The same store yielded also a well-preserved enameled water-pail and some smaller dishes of like ware, three more knives, quantities of nails, and some small tools; also the tremendous bonanza of a magazine rifle and a shotgun, both of which Stern judged would come into shape by the application of oil and by careful tinkering.
Then she went over to the closet, and soon found her missing volumes, and uttered her gentle Good-afternoon. Mrs. Clemm had folded her sewing, and came out on the porch where the water-pail stood empty, so she started to the well. "Please thank your cousin for her kindness," she said in a soft tone. "I am glad she is fond of books."
The water-pail was surrounded and the thirsty players rinsed out their mouths, well knowing the reprimand that awaited should they be rash enough to take even one swallow. Sweaters were hurriedly donned, Simson dealing them out from the pile on the ground, and the fellows sank on to the benches. Neil saw Sydney, and talked to him over the fence until he heard his name called from the line-up.
"I guess I'll take off this dress before I clear up the things," she said, in a voice of temporary defeat. Her husband picked up the empty water-pail as he left the kitchen, and filled it at the well. When he brought it back there was no one visible. "Need any wood, Tildy?" he called toward the bedroom where she was dressing. "No, I guess not."
Ere she had taken the first step, however, she started; in rising she had upset the clerk's tin water-pail, which fell rattling on the floor. "The water!" she exclaimed sadly, "and my tongue is parched." "I'll fetch more," said Els consolingly; "Herr Martin brought it from over yonder."
Another might pull up for a moment, glance up at the stars or down at the white froth under the rail, draw his hand across his forehead, mutter, "My soul, but I'm dry," take a full dipper from the water-pail, drink it dry, pass dipper and pail along to the next and back to his work.
"I lived fifteen years with a woman that wouldn't let me smoke, busted my cider jug in the cellar, jawed me from sun-up till bedtime, hid my best clothes away from me like I was ten years old, wouldn't let me pipe water from the spring, and stuck a jeroosly water-pail under my nose every time I showed in sight of the house.
"Some singing birds are real plucky too," said Rap. "That same year I found a Robin's nest in April, when the water-pail by the well froze every night, and a Woodcock's nest in the brushwood. It's hard to see a Woodcock on the nest, they look so like dead leaves. It snowed a little that afternoon, and the poor bird's back was all white, but there she sat.
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