“Think of Paradise Valley,” I went on. “It will be green and sprinkled with blossoms, and the brook will be singing as it goes by.”
“You quit!” he answered, with a little gesture of impatience. “Say!” he suggested, with enthusiasm, after a moment, “I wouldn't wonder but what the fish would bite—ye take it on the rapids there.”
We returned to the house and he sat in his chair on the small veranda.
Robins were building their nest on a shelf near him, and were busy with their fetching and weaving.
“Look at the scalawags!” he laughed. “No, there ain't nothin' that's 'fraid o' me some way. I got a club one day an' tried to scare a mouse; but seems so she knew I was only foolin'. Now she's begun to bully me an' fetch her children right into my bedroom, an' I guess I'll have to git mad an' declare war.”
I hailed a boy in the street, and sent him for a team, to be brought immediately after dinner.
When we sat down to eat, Uncle Eb put the same old question: