With a boy's
keen insight, he had discovered enough to convince him that Carl
was "dead mashed on Jennie," as he put it, but whether "for keeps"
or not he had not yet determined. He had already enriched his
songs with certain tender allusions to their present frame of mind
and their future state of happiness. "Where was Moses when the
light went out!" and "Little Annie Rooney" had undergone so subtle
a change when sung at the top of Mr. James Finnegan's voice that
while the original warp and woof of those very popular melodies
were entirely unrecognizable to any but the persons interested, to
them they were as gall and wormwood. This was Cully's invariable
way of expressing his opinions on current affairs. He would sit
on the front-board of his cart,--the Big Gray stumbling over the
stones as he walked, the reins lying loose,--and fill the air with
details of events passing in the village, with all the gusto of a
variety actor. The impending strike at the brewery had been made
the basis of a paraphrase of "Johnnie, get your gun;" and even
McGaw's red head had come in for its share of abuse to the air of
"Fire, boys, fire!" So for a time this new development of
tenderness on the part of Carl for Jennie served to ring the
changes on "Moses" and "Annie Rooney."
Carl's budding hopes had been slightly nipped by the cold look in
Tom's eye when she asked him if it took an hour to give Jennie a
tattered apron.
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