“No,” answered Robert, so honestly that the old man believed him.
“You may not know now, you may have forgot; but you knowed yest’day. What was you a-doin’ with a fish-line in the hen-house, hey?”
“It ain’t your hen-house! I mean—that’s sassy, but—”
“Ha, ha, ha!” chuckled the veteran. “Got caught, hain’t ye? S’posin’ I tell your ma?”
“Humph! I’d jest as soon tell her myself, only I forgot it. I will, the first time I remember. Anyhow, it didn’t do no harm!”
“What is it, Mr. Dolloway?” asked the widow, who made it a point herself to visit the poultry-house immediately after breakfast and see that the fowls were properly fed, and who now joined them there.
“Hello, Motherkin! I—yest’day—I— Wull, it didn’t do no harm.”
“’Tain’t so easy as you thought, eh, Bubby?”
“Easy ’nough. Yest’day I had some fun with the hens; that’s all.”
“What kind of fun, Robert?”