"I wish there was a turtle as big as a wash tub in the river" she sobbed, "and I wish it would eat that old Black Bass to the last scale. And I'm going to take the shotgun, and go over to the embankment, and poke it into the tunnel, and blow the old Kingfisher through into the cornfield. Then maybe Dannie won't go off too and leave me. I want this onion bed spaded right away, so I do."
"Drop that! Idjit! What you doing?" yelled Jimmy.
"Mary, ye goose!" panted Dannie, as he came hurrying across the yard. "Wha' do ye mean? Ye knew I'd be back in a minute! Jimmy juist called me to hear the Bass splash. I was comin' back. Mary, this amna fair."
Dannie took the spade from her hand, and Mary fled sobbing to the house.
"What's the row?" demanded Jimmy of the suffering Dannie.
"I'd juist started spadin' this onion bed," explained Dannie. "Of course, she thought we were going to stay all day."
"With no poles, and no bait, and no grub? She didn't think any such a domn thing," said Jimmy. "You don't know women! She just got to the place where it's her time to spill brine, and raise a rumpus about something, and aisy brathin' would start her. Just let her bawl it out, and thin—we'll get something dacent for dinner."
Dannie turned a spadeful of earth and broke it open, and Jimmy squatted by the can, and began picking out the angle worms.
"I see where we dinna fish much this summer," said Dannie, as he waited. "And where we fish close home when we do, and where all the work is done before we go."
"Aha, borrow me rose-colored specks!" cried Jimmy. "I don't see anything but what I've always seen. I'll come and go as I please, and Mary can do the same. I don't throw no 'jeminy fit' every time a woman acts the fool a little, and if you'd lived with one fiftane years you wouldn't either. Of course we'll make the garden. Wish to goodness it was a beer garden! Wouldn't I like to plant a lot of hop seed and see rows of little green beer bottles humpin' up the dirt. Oh, my! What all does she want done?"