Puck dropped it reluctantly, and came across to Bobs, his head hanging. The swagman sat down on the ground and nursed his leg.
“That served you right,” Norah said, with judicial severity. “You hadn’t any business to grab my watch. Now, if you’ll go up to the house they’ll give you some tucker and a rag for your leg!”
She rode off, whistling to Puck. The swagman gaped and muttered various remarks. He did not call at the house.
Norah was supposed to manage the fowls, but her management was almost entirely ornamental, and it is to be feared that the poultry yard would have fared but poorly had it depended upon her alone. All the fowls were hers. She said so, and no one contradicted her. Still, whenever one was wanted for the table, it was ruthlessly slain. And it was black Billy who fed them night and morning, and Mrs. Brown who gathered the eggs, and saw that the houses were safely shut against the foxes every evening. Norah’s chief part in the management lay in looking after the setting hens. At first she firmly checked the broody instincts by shutting them callously under boxes despite pecks and loud protests. Later, when their mood refused to change, she loved to prepare them soft nests in boxes, and to imprison them there until they took kindly to their seclusion. Then it was hard work to wait three weeks until the first fluffy heads peeped out from the angry mother’s wing, after which Norah was a blissfully adoring caretaker until the downy balls began to get ragged, as the first wing and tail feathers showed. Then the chicks became uninteresting, and were handed over to Black Billy.
Besides her own pets there were Jim’s.
“Mind, they’re in your care,” Jim had said sternly, on the evening before his departure for school. They were making a tour of the place—Jim outwardly very cheerful and unconcerned; Norah plunged in woe. She did not attempt to conceal it. She had taken Jim’s arm, and it was sufficient proof of his state of mind that he did not shake it off. Indeed, the indications were that he was glad of the loving little hand tucked into the bend of his arm.
“Yes, Jim; I’ll look after them.”
“I don’t want you to bother feeding them yourself,” Jim said magnanimously; “that ’ud be rather too much of a contract for a kid, wouldn’t it? Only keep an eye on ’em, and round up Billy if he doesn’t do his work. He’s a terror if he shirks, and unless you watch him like a cat he’ll never change the water in the tins every morning. Lots of times I’ve had to do it myself!”
“I’d do it myself sooner’n let them go without, Jim, dear,” said the small voice, with a suspicion of a choke.
“Don’t you do it,” said Jim; “slang Billy. What’s he here for, I’d like to know! I only want you to go round ’em every day, and see that they’re all right.”