“Go on back, Rover!” he commanded, stepping aside to avoid his rough welcome. “Chase them up, Rover!”
Rover paused on his four feet only long enough to cast up a glance of searching inquiry at his young master’s face, when, as if satisfied that his mood were congenial, he immediately returned to his task with doubled despatch.
In making toward the great, red barn at the farther side of the yard, Mauney passed the henhouse, from which radiated a pungent, ammoniacal odor, all too familiar to his nostrils. In the drive shed, on the beams several white hens were settling to roost. One of these fowl, jealous of position, pecked the head of its fellow, causing an expostulant cackle of pain. The sudden disturbance of this sound spread to the precincts of the quiescent henhouse, whereupon one crescendo of rasping invective followed another, leading to a distracting medley of full-throated excitement, that subsided only at the masterly clarion of a rooster, angry at being disturbed.
The returning wagon now rumbled nearer, over flat stones behind the barn, its heavy roar measured by the regular, metallic clip of the horses’ well-shod hoofs. “Git ap, there! What’re yuh doin’ there!” came the gruff voice of his father. A loud whip-crack broke the steady rhythm of the horses’ hoofs into an irregular gallop, while the thunder of the wagon filled the yard with increasing vibration.
Mauney ascended the stone bridge to the great double doors, which, owing to the wind, he opened with difficulty, and entered to grease the teeth of his saw and hang it carefully on two spikes driven into the side of the hay mow. He stood his axe in a corner and tossed the pliers into an empty soap box that stood on a rough carpenter’s bench. One of the doors, which he had left open, now slammed shut, stirring up a stifling cloud of chaff and rendering the interior of the barn unpleasantly dark. In turning he stumbled over a stick of stove-wood, used for blocking the wheels of the hay-wagon, and fell forward. Putting, out his right hand, he brought the palm down heavily on the sharp end of a spike that projected from an upturned board. He regained his feet quickly and clasped his injured hand. It was too dark to see, but he felt a trickle of hot fluid accumulating in his other palm. A sickening pain mounted his arm in spirals, but he whistled a snatch of a song, and left the barn.
As he passed quickly toward the kitchen, the heavy team of Clydesdales rounded the corner of the yard, lifting their front feet high, their heads tightly reined, with foam blowing from their white mouths. As they were pulled up to a stop a horse within the barn whinnied. Then Mauney presently heard the jingle of chains as the team were being unhitched, and in the quiet air, his father’s voice saying:
“The young fellah’s gave us the slip!”
His brother William’s voice replied in the same disagreeable tone: “Wonder he wouldn’t give us a hand unhitchin.’ Fixin’ fences is easier’n spreadin’ cow dung. Least he could do would be to throw the horses a little hay!”
A warm wave of anger flushed Mauney’s face as he halted in the middle of the yard, half determined to go back, but his hand drove him imperatively toward the kitchen. On the edge of the porch he relieved his boots of adhering mud and manure on a scraper made from an old draw-knife turned upside down between supports. The two long upper panels of the kitchen door were replaced by glass and draped inside by a plain cotton curtain, through which a glow of lamp-light gave Mauney a grateful impression of homely coziness. After rubbing his boots on the oval verandah mat of plaited rags, he pressed down the thumb latch and entered.
“Hello, Maun,” came a woman’s voice from the pantry, half-drowned by the noise of a mechanical egg-beater. “D’juh get the marsh fence finished?”