The children glanced at each other. Jonas took the pipe with a curious expression on his face, which his sister was at a loss to understand.
“Thank’ee kindly,” he said; “I see it’ll be a case of—
“‘If ye try and don’t succeed,
Try, try, try, again,’”
What he meant was a riddle to every one else present, although not to the reader.
The “try” was very successful on that evening and the following day. Never had Johnny and Alie found their uncle so agreeable. His manner almost approached to gentleness—it was a calm after a storm.
“Uncle is so very good and kind,” said Alie to her brother, as they walked home from afternoon service, “that I wonder how you can bear to have that naughty picture still in your book. He is not in the least like a cannibal, and it seems quite wrong to laugh at him so.”
“I’ll rub it all out one of these days,” replied Johnny; “but I must show it first to Peter Crane. He says that I never hit on a likeness: if he sees that, he’ll never say so again!”
The next morning Jonas occupied himself with gathering wild-flowers and herbs in the fields. He carried them into his little room, where Johnny heard him whistling “Old Tom Bowling,” like one at peace with himself and all the world.
Presently Jonas called to the boy to bring him a knife from the kitchen; a request made in an unusually courteous tone of voice, and with which, of course, Johnny immediately complied.