“Wull, I had a fish-line, an’ you wouldn’t lemme fish, not fer fish; so I fished fer hens, that’s all.”
“Fished—for—hens!”
“Yep. My cracky! you’d ’a’ died a laughin’! I put the hook through a kernel of corn and throwed it to ’em, and they’d gobble at it like anything! Then I’d pull ’em in; but it mostly came out of their mouths before I landed ’em.”
“Robert Beckwith! I can scarcely believe my own ears! How do you learn such cruelty? It must be born in you, though, for you certainly never copied it from your elder brother. In all his life I never knew Roland to wilfully hurt a creature of any kind; but you—”
“Oh, Motherkin! You wouldn’t scold your dear little boy fer a little thing like that, would you? It didn’t hurt the hens, not a bit.”
“No, no! It didn’t hurt the hens; but why, you shaver?” demanded Mr. Dolloway, who greatly enjoyed his small tormentor’s predicament, yet who really was growing very fond of him.
“’Cause a man—he come an’ told me to stop. But I had some more fun ’at he didn’t get onto, afterwards!”
Mrs. Beckwith sighed and dropped upon a bench. There were times when her “dear little boy” tried her very soul.
“What else did you do?” demanded Mr. Dolloway, sternly.
“A boy come along an’ I asked him in. That’s p’lite, wasn’t it?”