It was a half hour before Jud got all the fine eggshell out of his eyes. After that he decided to let the Butts family alone for the present. But as he rode away he was heard to say again:
“Whut—whut—whut did he do to Bonaparte?”
Archie B. was still rolling on the ground, and chuckling now and then in fits of laughter, when a determined, motherly looking, fat girl appeared at the doorway of the family cottage. It was his sister, Patsy Butts:
“Maw,” she exclaimed, “I wish you'd look at Archie B. I bet he's done sump'in.”
There was a parental manner in her way. Her one object in life, evidently, was to watch Archie B.
“You Archie B.,” yelled his mother, a sallow little woman of quick nervous movements, “air you havin' a revulsion down there? What air you been doin' anyway? Now, you git up from there and go see why Ozzie B. don't fetch the cows home.”
Archie B. arose and went down the road whistling.
A ground squirrel ran into a pile of rocks. Archie B. turned the rocks about until he found the nest, which he examined critically and with care. He fingered it carefully and patted it back into shape. “Nice little nes',” he said—“that settles it—I thought they lined it with fur.” Then he replaced the rocks and arose to go.
A quarter of a mile down the road he stopped and listened.
He heard his brother, Ozzie B., sobbing and weeping.