“You can study grammar and take care of poultry at the same time. Miss Brook has a famous stock of poultry. It is one of her amusements; but she is going to start you off with a few ordinary fowls, and see how you manage them. Then, if you are industrious, after you have paid for the first ones, she will let you have a better lot. I am to repair the old poultry-house, down at the foot of the barnyard, and you are to do the rest. I suppose, at first, mother would be as willing to buy her eggs and chickens of you as of anybody else. What do you say?”
“I say—I say—I dunno. I—well, I guess I’ll let her.”
“See here, ‘Humpty-Dump’! It just begins to dawn upon me that you are a spoiled child. Mr. Dolloway has remarked so several times, and I have indignantly denied it. I hope you will be a little gentleman to Miss Brook, no matter whether your business ideas differ from hers or not. She is coming here very soon, and I don’t want her to think my Bob is anything less perfect than I have painted him.”
“H’m-m. Don’t that Mr. Dolloway man live to her house?”
“Yes; certainly. Why?”
“Then they ain’t no use. He’s told her the hull cat an’ checker-board story ’fore this time. I guess I won’t need to bother an’ behave no diff’runt from every day. She wouldn’t believe me if I did. She’d be a ’spectin’ I’d do somethin’ naughty all the time. She wouldn’t have no conf’dunce in a feller after that man has talked to her.”
“Pooh! Is that all the courage you have? If I were you I’d show her that the old gentleman was mistaken. I’d take her chickens an’ say, ‘Thank you.’ I’d set every mother biddy on a pile of fresh eggs, and I’d have little downy chickens running all around. I’d teach the hens to respect me and come to me every time I called them; and I’d make my Motherkin think she had the smartest little boy in Orange County, which is where you live now, my dear!”
“Is it? Would you, Bon?”
“I would!”
“Wull—wull—I guess you’re ’most always square. An’ I will. I’ll let Miss Brook be good ter me if she wants ter.”