"Nobody could do that. She ain't afraid of anything above ground. 'T ain't fear makes her yield to Lazy-Bones there; and when she sets out to make him do something he don't want to, she gets him every time." Eliza's eyes wandered to a cottage by the roadside. "There's Betsy Eaton watchin' us. I expect she's wonderin' why we're standin' in the wet so long. Well, I've blown off steam and I'll run home. I s'pose you'll be comin' up to-night to move those little pieces o' wood around."
"Sure thing, Eliza," returned Captain James with a grin. "Lemme teach you the game so you can play it with him times when I don't come."
In the speaker's own parlance he was trying to "get a rise" out of his old friend; and he succeeded. Eliza's eyes flashed almost with the fire of youth.
"I'd throw 'em at him. I know I would—every checker of 'em."
"Well, he'll be fishin' again soon," laughed Captain James soothingly, "now his new boat's about done."
"H'm!" grunted Eliza; and with no other form of farewell, she started to trudge up the hill toward home. The earth was moist and yielding; the chill spring was here, and nature was drawing her green paint-brush over the high wave of the bluff. Little star-flowers bloomed under her energizing kisses, and shivered bravely when the east wind blew.
This morning the sun fell with sufficient warmth on the stone step for Pluto to lie there, and blink at the first sparrow he had seen. On the whole, Eliza's move away from New York had his entire approval. The change from the restrictions of a city flat to this place was in itself a delight, and far from agreeing with Eliza's estimation of the master of the house he found him quite the most sensible human being he had ever encountered. One who appreciated a soft lounge when he saw it, and who always made room for a cat, and never disturbed his slumbers with precipitate movement. Eliza watched their growing intimacy with grim amusement.
"Birds of a feather flock together," was frequently her mental comment.
As the spring unfolded, and the early mornings were less chill, Mr. Wright again took up his suspended practice of making sunrise visits to his pond. At first Pluto considered this a foolish practice; but at last he learned to connect it with attractive pieces of fish which came his way, and again he paid tribute of admiration to the hand which always discriminated so nicely just which point back of his ears should be scratched in order to establish the most friendly relations.
Eliza's threat that he should reside in the chicken-house had come to naught, for it had required but a few days for Pluto to recover from the savagery to which his novel contact with Mother Earth at first reduced him; and he again became a domestic animal full of content in the equally novel petting which now fell to his share.