“It’s most too extraordinary,” he said, and stood looking at the woodpile. He was not really thinking about what I had told him; I could feel that. “Well, Jimsy!” We both started a little. It was May, who had come round the corner of the house, and the setting sun shone upon her and made her quite lovely, where she stood shading her eyes, with a little hair floating one side of her forehead. “Well, Jimsy! Dreaming again! Do you know what time it is? The way you’ve took to dreaming is something terrible!” Jimsy went into the house. I was glad that two days more would see me out of this. Next morning I stood justified--oh, more than justified--in Jimsy’s eyes. No one could have anticipated such a performance at the pond as I was able to show him--it bore me out and surpassed anything I had told him--and no one could have foretold that it would fire Jimsy with a curiosity equal to mine. The ceremony of the toast was in progress when Jimsy, crossing to the corral, saw me thus engaged. He stuck his hands into his pockets and strolled across to the water’s edge, wearing a broad grin of indulgence. “Awful busy, you are!” said he. “Just watch them,” said I. “Oh, I’ve got a day’s work to do.” “I’m aware,” I retorted, “that scientific observation doesn’t look like work to the ignorant.” “What’re you trying to find out?” “I told you last night. I can’t see how that drake keeps those ducks in order.” “Oh, I guess he don’t keep ’em in order.” “I tell you he has them under his thumb.” Jimsy cast a careless eye upon the birds. They had finished the toast and were swimming about. The quacks of the Duchess were merely quacks to him; he did not hear that she was saying to the Countess: “Hah, Hah, Hah! How do you fancy a back seat this morning?” “One feels mortified, of course,” I explained to Jimsy, “that she should betray her spite so crudely--a sad but common thing in our country.” “In the name of God, what are you talking about?” demanded Jimsy. “Oh, I’m not in the least crazy. New York stinks with people like that.” At this moment the usual thing happened in the pond--the Duchess made a miscalculation. The drake swam suddenly left instead of right, and the Countess jumped to the favored place. Now it was she who quacked backward at her discountenanced rival. “She is really the sweeter nature of the two,” I said. But Jimsy was attending to the ducks with an awakened interest; in fact, he was now caught in the same fascination that had held me for so many days. He took his hands out of his pockets and followed the ducks keenly. “I believe you weren’t lyin’ to me,” he remarked presently. “You wait! Just you wait!” I exclaimed. He watched a little longer. “D’you suppose,” he said, “it’s his feathers they love so?” “His feathers?” I repeated. “Those two curly ones in his tail. They’re crooked plumb enticing, like they were saying, ‘Come, girls!’”