Jan of the Windmill: A Story of the Plains — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Jan of the Windmill: A Story of the Plains
John Stuart Mill · en
“What a vool I be, to be sure!” said George, his simple countenance
lighted up with a broader smile than before. “I knows a book, sartinly,
Master Lake, I knows a book. There’s one,” George continued, speaking
even slower than before,—“there’s one inzide, sir,—a big un. On the
shelf it be. A Vamly Bible they calls un. And I’m sartin sure it be
there,” he concluded, “for a hasn’t been moved since the last time you
christened, Master Lake.”
The miller turned away, biting his lip hard, to repress a useless
outburst of rage, and George, still smiling sweetly, spun the broom
dexterously between his hands, as a man spins the water out of a stable
mop. Just before Master Lake had got beyond earshot, George lowered the
broom, and began to scratch his head once more. “I be a proper vool,
sartinly,” said he; and when the miller heard this, he turned back.
“Mother allus said I’d no more sense in my yead than a dumbledore,”
George candidly confessed. And by a dumbledore he meant a humble-bee.
“It do take me such a time to mind any thing, sir.”
“Well, never mind, Gearge,” said the miller; “if thee’s slow, thee’s
sure. What do ’ee remember about the book, now, Gearge? A don’t mind
giving thee five shilling, if thee finds un, Gearge.”
“A had un down at the burying, I ’member quite well now, sir. To put the
little un’s name in ’twas. I thowt a hadn’t been down zince christening,
I be so stoopid sartinly.”
“What are you talking about, ye vool?” roared the miller.
“The book, sir, sartinly,” said George, his honest face beaming with
good-humor. “The Vamly Bible, Master Lake.”
And as the windmiller went off muttering something which the Family Bible
would by no means have sanctioned, George returned chuckling to a
leisurely use of his broom on the round-house floor.
Master Lake did not find the pocket-book, and after a day or two it was
advertised in a local paper, and a reward of five pounds offered for it.
George Sannel was seated one evening in the “Heart of Oak” inn, sipping
some excellent home-brewed ale, which had been warmed up for his
consumption in a curious funnel-shaped pipkin, when his long lop-ears
caught a remark made by the inn-keeper, who was reading out bits from the
local paper to a small audience, unable to read it for themselves.
“Five pound reward!” he read. “Lor massy! There be a sum to be easily
earned by a sharp-eyed chap with good luck on ’s side.”
“And how then, Master Chuter?” said George, pausing, with the steaming
mug half-way to his lips.
“Haw, haw!” roared the inn-keeper: “you be a sharp-eyed chap, too! Do
’ee think ’twould suit thee, Gearge? Thee’s a sprack chap, sartinly,
Gearge!”
“Haw, haw, haw!” roared the other members of the company, as they slowly
realized Master Chuter’s irony at the expense of the “voolish” Gearge.