"You see," Augusta took up the explanations, while Mr. Gamblin settled a heavy foot on the hub of the wheel and went into conference with them, "Jimmie hasn't been well. Not really sick, you know, but just—he coughed a good deal. And we came out like gypsies, you know we're not really gypsies at all," she elucidated carefully. "And now I'm sure he's tired of it. It's so easy to tire of a thing that isn't after all quite natural."
"Well now," Mr. Gamblin began helpfully, "there's as much room right in sight here as you'll find most anywheres. And there's a balsam ridge right over that shoulder of hill there that when the wind is right is better for a cough than anything that ever came out of a doctor's shop."
Jimmie, whose eyes still had their trick of watching for the details of every picture, noticed an angry twitching of the vine that screened a window in the wing of the post office building, where, probably, Mr. Gamblin lived. He deduced that there was a woman behind that vine listening. And the woman was getting angry.
"Oh, that sounds so good!" Augusta enthused immediately. "You know, we've only got a little money. And it has to last. You know if we had a plenty we wouldn't have to think or worry at all. But then, if we had money it would be something else."
"Golly! You're right," the old man agreed with a hearty slap on his knee. "And the fryin' pan can't be quite so hot as the fire anyway. So if you can only just—"
"Jeth-nye-yah! You left the 'lasses runnin'!"
Mr. Gamblin jumped into the air as though at the crack of a whip.
He came down nimbly on his feet and started a bolt for the door of the post office. He took, however, only a few hurried steps. Then he stopped short with a thud and an angry grunt. He shook himself viciously like an enraged and baffled bull, and it seemed that he was about to roar.
Jimmie knew at once that the woman behind the screen of vines had played a ruse—probably an old one—upon the old gentleman, to make him break off an interesting conversation.
Augusta, not understanding at all, and wishing to go on with the discussion, said helpfully: