"'He raided Jack Mott's last night and has about three hundred bottles
to smash this afternoon. The old fellow is pretty fond of the ice-cold
bottles himself and it is common report that he raids just often enough
to keep himself supplied. So I think I'll keep an eye on him to-day.
He started half an hour ago, south road, and he has Gus Waldron with
him,--his boon companion, and the most notoriously ardent devotee of
the bottles in all dear dry Mount Mark. Lovely day for a drive, isn't
it?'
"'Yes, lovely.' I was very happy. I felt like a princess of old,
riding off into danger, and I felt very warm and friendly toward Kirke.
Remember that he is very good-looking and just bad enough in spite of
his new pillar-hood, to be spell-binding, and--it was lots of fun.
Kirke grabbed my hand and squeezed it chummily, and I smiled at him.
"'You are a glorious girl,' he said.
"I suppose I should have reminded him and myself that he was a
semi-satanic, but I did not. I laughed and rubbed the back of his hand
softly with the tips of my nice pink finger nails, and laughed again.
"Then here came a light wagon,--Matters and Waldron,--going home, and
we realized we had been loitering on the job. Kirke shook his head
impatiently.
"'You distracted me,' he said. 'I forgot my reputation's salvation in
the smile of your eye.'
"But we drove on to look the field over. Less than half a mile down
the road we came to a low creek with rocky rugged banks. The banks
were splashed and splattered with bits of glass, and over the glass and
over the rocks ran thin trickling streams of a pale brown liquid that
had a perfectly sickening odor. I sniffed disgustedly as we walked
over to reconnoiter.
"'I guess he made good all right,' said Kirke in a disappointed voice,
inspecting the glass-splattered banks of the creek. Then he leaped
across and walked lightly up the bank on the opposite side. Stooping
down, he lifted an unbroken bottle and waved it at me, laughing.
"'They missed one. Never a crack in it and still cold.' He looked at
it curiously, affectionately, then with resignation. 'I am a
minister's son,' he reminded himself sternly. He lifted the bottle
above his head, and with his eye selected a nice rough rock half way
down the bank. 'Watch the bubbles,' he called to me.
"'Hay, mister,' interposed a voice, 'gimme half a dollar an' I'll show
you a whole pile of 'em that ain't broke.'
"Slowly we rallied from our stupefaction as we gazed at the slim,
brown, barefooted lad of the farm who was proudly brandishing a
forbidden cigarette of corn-silks.
"'A whole pile of 'em. On the square?' asked Kirke with glittering
eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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