“Oh, me pail! Shure the head of me is turned intirely, bad cess to that cow! or I believe there's a hole through it, loike there is in me lung.”
“Your head turned!” said Nannie scornfully. “I should say it was—turned inside out and emptied entirely.”
But Bridget was wooing Mrs. Maria now.
“Aisy, now! Aisy, I say!” she muttered as she cautiously lowered herself onto the milking stool.
But by some mysterious law of opposites, as she went down the pail went up. Sarah Maria never ceased munching for a moment, but Nannie, who was fixedly regarding her and trying to calculate how much longer her breakfast would last, heard the crash, and looking around saw the pail on its way upward.
“Now may the saints forgive me if I imperil me life anny longer!” cried Bridget from a safe distance.
“And may Sarah Maria forgive you for sitting down on the wrong side of her, you old goose!” screamed Nannie in her rude way.
“Howly Mither defind us! Did I do that now? Shure the twinty cows I milked in ould Oireland preferred that side, an' they were very particular about it, ivery last wan of thim.”
“Now, don't crawl along that way,” said Nannie impatiently as Bridget crept up to her, “and take hold as if you weren't afraid.”
“Shure if I had a shillalah wid a sucker on the ind of it, it's milk her I wud, widout anny loss of me color, though she thritened me wid twinty horns an' as manny hind legs.”