"Now, I'm off," said Jimmy, rising. "I'll take your gun, because
I ain't goin' to see Mary till I get back."
"Oh, Jimmy, dinna do that!" pleaded Dannie. "I want my gun. Go
and get your own, and tell her where ye are going and what ye are
going to do. She'd feel less lonely."
"I know how she would feel better than you do," retorted Jimmy.
"I am not going. If you won't give me your gun, I'll borrow one;
or have all my fun spoiled."
Dannie took down the shining gun and passed it over. Jimmy
instantly relented. He smiled an old boyish smile, that always
caught Dannie in his softest spot.
"You are the bist frind I have on earth, Dannie," he said
winsomely. "You are a man worth tying to. By gum, there's NOTHING
I wouldn't do for you! Now go on, like the good fellow you are,
and fix it up with Mary."
So Dannie started for the wood pile. In summer he could stand
outside and speak through the screen. In winter he had to enter
the cabin for errands like this, and as Jimmy's wood box was as
heavily weighted on his mind as his own, there was nothing
unnatural in his stamping snow on Jimmy's back stoop, and calling
"Open!" to Mary at any hour of the day he happened to be passing
the wood pile.
He stood at a distance, and patiently waited until a gray and
black nut-hatch that foraged on the wood covered all the new
territory discovered by the last disturbance of the pile.
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