They looked at each other. "Water?" Yes, that was what was wanted. They remembered their practice of the previous evening. One found a wooden pail. The other emptied upon the floor the contents of the tin pail the widow had "borrowed." They went to the well. They brought water. "To throw on her?" Yes, that was what he said. And together they dashed a sudden drenching flood over the poor woman, as if the swoon were another fire to be extinguished.
These fellows obeyed orders literally—a merit which Lysander now failed to appreciate. He swore at them terribly. But he did not countermand his last order. Accordingly they proceeded stoically to bring more water. Lysander had got his mothers head on his knee, and she had just opened her eyes to look and her mouth to gasp, when there came another double ice-cold wave, blinding, stifling, drowning her. Too much of water hadst thou, poor lone widow!
Lysander let fall the maternal head, and bounded to his feet, roaring with wrath. The brothers, imperturbable, with the empty pails at their sides, stared at him with mute wonder.
"Captain, dat was your orders. You say, 'Pring vasser and trow on.' We pring vasser and trow on. Dat is all."
"But I didn't tell you to fetch pailfuls!"
This sentence rushed out of Lysander's soul like a rocket, culminated in a loud, explosive oath, and was followed by a shower of fiery curses falling harmless on the heads of the unmoved Teutons.
They waited patiently until the pyrotechnic rain ceased, then answered, speaking alternately, each a sentence, as if with one mind, but with two organs.
"Captain, you hear. Last night vas de house afire. You say, 'Pring vasser.' We pring a little. Den you say to us, 'Tarn you! why in hell you shtop?' And you say, 'Von I tell you pring vasser, pring till I say shtop.' Vun time more to-day you say, 'Pring vasser,' and you never say shtop. You say, 'Trow on.' We trow on. Vat you say we do. You not say vat you mean, dat is mishtake for you."
It is not to be supposed that Lysander listened meekly to the end of this speech. He had caught the sound of voices without that interested him more; and, looking, he saw Mrs. Stackridge returning, with her children.
The Pepperill young-one had faithfully done her errand; and the farmer's wife, believing something important was meant by it, had hastened to accept the singular and urgent invitation. But, arrived at the poor man's shanty, she was astonished to find Mrs. Pepperill astonished to see her. They talked the matter over, questioned the child, and finally concluded that Daniel had said something quite different, which the child had misunderstood.