“Mornin’. I reckon I skeered ye jest a trifle, didn’t I? How wet ye be in here,” said Dan, glancing at the little pools of water that filled every depression in the rough, uneven floor.
“Come in an’ take a cheer, Dannie,” said the man who had tried to hide the chickens, while the other two sat up in their bunks and nodded to him.[him.] “It is damp, that’s a fact; but, you see, it rained powerful yesterday, the roof aint by no means as tight as it might be, an’ the ole scow leaks water awful. We can’t hardly keep her pumped out.”
“Then what makes ye stay here?” asked Dan. “I know a nice, tight leetle house over thar on the shore of the lake, with two big rooms into it, an’ thar aint nobody lives thar.”
“We’ve seen it; but it’s locked up.”
“What’s the odds? Take something an’ pull one of the steeples out, an’ ye kin get in as easy as fallin’ off a log.”
“We don’t want to get into no trouble. Who owns it?”
“Don Gordon; but he’s off somewhere goin’ to school, an’ thar’s no tellin’ when he will be to hum.”
“Does he live thar when he’s to home?”
“No. He jest stays there a leetle while an’ shoots ducks an’ geese. That’s what he built it fur.”
“Rich folks always has nice things,” said one of the men who had not spoken before, “but we poor folks has to take what we can get. We’re just as good as Gen’ral Gordon too, every day in the week.”