United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Moreover, while his demeanour was impeccable, his reserve was impenetrable, and even the tolerant and kindly MacPhairrson could find nothing in him to love. The decree, therefore, had gone forth; that is, it had been announced by MacPhairrson himself, and apparently approved by the ever attentive Stumpy and Ebenezer, that Carrots should be sold into exile at the very first opportunity.
That there Ananias-and-Sapphira, she's a bird an' no mistake. An' the pig MacPhairrson calls him Ebenezer he's that smart ye'd jest kill yerself laffin' to see him. An', moreover, he's that clean he's clean as a lady. I'd like to have them two around my shanty. An' I'm ready to take one more if necessary." "Then I think you'll have to take the coon too, Mr. MacAllister," said the Boy.
MacPhairrson realized that when Susan should come to her full heritage of stature, he would hardly have room for her on the island. He would then send to the Game Commissioner at Fredericton for a permit, and sell the good soul to the agent for some Zoölogical Garden, where she would be appreciated and cared for.
As for Carrots, his conduct was irreproachable, absolutely without blot or blemish, but MacPhairrson knew that he was quite unregenerate at heart. The astute little beast understood well enough the fundamental law of the Family, "Live and let live," and he knew that if he should break that law, doom would descend upon him in an eye-wink.
He did not really care much about any one else's ideas except the Boy's, which he respected as second only to those of MacPhairrson where the wild kindreds were concerned. Black Angus was a huge, big-handed, black-bearded, bull-voiced man, whose orders and imprecations made themselves heard above the most piercing crescendos of the saws.
When the Boy came through the little bridge gate, the greetings between him and MacPhairrson were brief and quiet. They were fellows both in the taciturn brotherhood of the woods. To Stumpy and Ebenezer, who nosed affectionately at his legs, he paid no attention beyond a careless touch of caress.
Ebenezer, the pig, was still too young to be promoted to permanence; but he had already shown such character, intelligence, and self-respecting individuality that MacPhairrson had vowed he should never deteriorate into pork. Ebenezer should stay, even though he should grow so big as to be inconvenient. But with Susan, the moose calf, and Carrots, the unsociable young fox, it was different.
Greatly impressed by this daring, she gurgled in her throat, and took the great thumb delicately between her mandibles with a daintiness that would not have marred a rose-petal. Yes, she concluded at once, this was a man after her own heart, with a smell to his hands like that of MacPhairrson himself.
In his panic he fairly tumbled from his perch to the floor, and straightway fled for refuge to the broad back of the surprised and flattered pig. "The little critter's all right!" declared MacPhairrson, when he and the Boy were done laughing. "Ananias-an'-Sapphira won't hurt him. She likes all the critters she kin bully an' skeer.
At last he was going to have the island all to himself; and he set himself to dig a burrow directly under the doorstep, where that meddlesome MacPhairrson had never permitted him to dig. It was in the green zenith of June when MacPhairrson went away. When he returned, hobbling up with his tiny bundle, the backwoods world was rioting in the scarlet and gold of young October. He was quite cured.
Word Of The Day