"
At this instant she caught Babcock's eye.
"Oh, it's the boss. Sure, I thought ye'd gone back. Pull the hat
off ye, me boy; it's the boss we're workin' for, the man that's
buildin' the wall. Ye see, sir, when I'm driv' like I am to-day,
I can't go home to dinner, and me Jennie sends
me--big--man--Patsy--down"--rounding out each word in a pompous
tone, as she slipped her hand under the boy's chin and kissed him
on the cheek.
After she had propped him between two big spars, she lifted the
cover of the tin pail.
"Pigs' feet, as I'm alive, and hot cabbage, and the coffee
a-b'ilin' too!" she said, turning to the boy and pulling out a tin
flask with a screw top, the whole embedded in the smoking cabbage.
"There, we'll be after puttin' it where Stumpy can't be rubbin'
his nose in it"--setting the pail, as she spoke, on a rough
anchor-stone.
Here the goat moved up, rubbing his head in the boy's face, and
then reaching around for the pail.
"Look at him, Patsy! Git out, ye imp, or I'll hurt ye! Leave
that kiver alone!" She laughed as she struck at the goat with her
empty gauntlet, and shrank back out of the way of his horns.
There was no embarrassment over her informal dinner, eaten as she
sat squat in a fence-corner, an anchor-stone for a table, and a
pile of spars for a chair.
Pages:
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29