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What he did see, when she turned her head, were eyes caught suddenly by something at the cabin door. He looked. Water was trickling in slowly over the sill. "I expected that," he said cheerfully. "Our scow is turning into a rain-barrel, Marette. Unless I bail out, we'll soon be flooded." He reached for his slicker and put it on. "It won't take me long to throw the water overboard," he added.
It had long been known that the breeding-place of mosquitoes was in water; that their eggs when deposited in water floated upon the surface like tiny boats, usually glued together into a raft; that they then turned into larvæ, of which the well-known "wigglers" in the water-butt or the rain-barrel are familiar examples; and that they finally hatched into the complete insect and rose into the air.
They looked on with dazed curiosity and some disappointment; there had been no fight to speak of no spectacle! A boy, nephew of Red Pete, got upon the rain-barrel to view the proceedings more comfortably; a tall, handsome, lazy Kentucky girl, a visiting neighbor, leaned against the doorpost, chewing gum. Only a yellow hound was actively perplexed.
There's a heap of vines to be trained up on strings 'round the porches, and there are all the flower beds to be weeded, this grass needs cutting, and the roof of the hen house has to be fixed so's it won't leak, the hoop has come off the rain-barrel, the back step is broken, and oh, yes, there are three screens that we can't get on the windows, and Mike never finds time for them."
All athrill with excitement, Mrs. Gammit hurried through her morning's chores, and allowed herself no breakfast except half a dozen violent cups of tea "with sweetenin'." Then, satisfied that the weasel in the rain-barrel was by this time securely and permanently dead, she fished it out, and reset the trap in its place under the barn.
The gleam of the forge shot out redly across the road. As I crept closer I could perceive the figures of others lounging about inside soldiers, no doubt, although I could not be certain. There was a ragged Confederate cavalry jacket hanging over a rain-barrel just outside the window, and, getting hold of it, I slipped it on over my woollen shirt.
After her mother and the three big brothers had returned to the table, the little girl, whom the barking had called from a bowl of grits and skimmed milk and a wash-pan of kerosene in which her chilblained feet were soaking, struggled to the top of the rain-barrel at the corner of the house and anxiously eyed the rising smoke.
Frank was glad that he had not let out his disappointment with the kind of Fourth they were having; and just then the horn sounded from the house for dinner, and the boys all got into the wagon, and rattled off to the barn. They put out the horses and fed them, and as soon as they could wash themselves at the rain-barrel behind the house, they went in and sat down with the family at dinner.
I suppose, in the old days, when women used to have to chop the kindling, and catch the water for washing in a rain-barrel, and keep up a fire in the kitchen stove and do their own bread baking and all, it used to keep 'em hustling. But, my goodness! A four-room flat for two isn't any work. By eleven, I'm through.
By the time he had gone over the wood-pile into the rain-barrel there wasn't any fight left in him. He didn't even speak till he was safe across the clearing. Then you should have seen him. He has gone down to the village to get help; he is going to teach me what it means to assault an officer of the law; he is going to send me to jail for life."
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