“That night I couldn’t git no sleep. The ole trouble come on agin,
an’ I went out an’ looked at the moon tell final I dozed off in the
pump-trough. ’Hen I woke next mornin’ I knowd what was wrong. I knowd
that what I hed was somethin’ I’d be better without, yit hed I to do it
over agin I wouldn’t hev awoided it. I knowd I could cut all the saplin’s
offen the chestnut flats an’ I wouldn’t git no ease. ’Hen I went over
the ridge that day I didn’t try to fool meself cuttin’ staffs. No sir.
I walked straight fer the clearin’. Ez I come near the house I whistled
pretty loud to give warnin’. At the gate I looked een. No one was ’round.
I thot to meself she was in the house, so I whistled louder. Major
seemed to understand too, an’ begin barkin’ to beat all. But it hedn’t
no effect. That kind o’ made me feel down like an’ me heart weighed wery
heavy ez I set on the stoop to wait fer her. All o’ a sudden I hear a
rat-tat-tat comin’ from the barn. There she was on the roof, a-nailin’
shingles. I walked down an’ looked up at her.
“‘Hello!’ I calls.
“‘Hello!’ sais she. With that she drove five shingle nails one after
another, never payin’ no attention.
“‘What are ye doin’?’ I asts ez I fixed meself on a chicken-coop an’
lighted me pipe. It’s pretty hard talkin’ to a girl ’hen she’s mendin’ a
barn roof, an’ ez I didn’t git no answer I stood up an’ yelled at the top
o’ me woice, ‘What are ye doin’?’
“‘Well,’ sais she, ‘I s’pose it does look ez tho’ I’m playin’ the
melodium, don’t it?’
“She wasn’t in a wery sociable turn o’ mind, but I’m one o’ those felly’s
that oncet he gits his plow in the furrow don’t pull it out tell he has
at least gone oncet ’round the field. So I jest set there smokin’ while
she kep’ on workin’. By an’ by the dinner-bells over in the walley begin
to ring, an’ she come down. She never sayd a word ’hen she reached the
ground, but I wasn’t to be put back that ’ay. I steps up wery polite
an’ gits her hammer an’ kerrys it inter the house fer her. Weemen allus
likes them leetle attentions. She did any way, fer she smiled, an’ ’hen I
’lowed I must be goin’, she sayd good-by. An’ I went.
“That night ez I set on the pump-trough with Major beside me, watchin’
the moon ez it come climbin’ up over the ridges, I hear plain an’
distinct the rat-tat-tat o’ the hammer an’ the shingle nails. I leaned
back agin the pump, closed me eyes an’ drank in the music. Soon I seen
it all agin--the barnyard with the razor-back pig an’ the broken-horned
cow browsin’ ’round; the barn, so ole an’ tumble-down that the hay was
stickin’ out all over it like it growed on the boards; the roof, half a
dozen pigeons cooin’ on one end, an’ her on the other tackin’ away. What
a pictur it ’ud made fer a reg’lar hand-paintin’!
“After breakfast Pap lighted his pipe, leaned back in his cheer an’ asted
me, ‘How’s that ailment o’ yours gittin’ now?’
“‘Ailment?’ sais I, cool ez ye please. ‘Why, I found it didn’t amount to
nawthin’. It’s all gone.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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