“But I’m your wife, William,” said Violet Elizabeth. There was the first stage—a suspicion of moisture—of the swimming tears in the blue eyes and William hastily retreated.
“All right, I’ll see,” he capitulated. “G’bye.”
“Aren’t you going to kith me?” said Violet Elizabeth plaintively.
“No,” said William, “I won’t kiss you. I’m ’fraid of givin’ you some sort of germ. I don’t think I’d better. G’bye.”
He departed hastily for the corner of the field before the tears had time to swim. He was already regretting the rash impulse that had made him stoop to this unmanly game. He waited in the corner of the field and counted fifty. He could see Violet Elizabeth cleaning the window of the barn with a small black handkerchief, then sallying forth with languid dignified gait to interview imaginary trades-people.
Then William suddenly espied a frog in the field beyond the hedge. He scrambled through in pursuit and captured it and spent a pleasant quarter of an hour teaching it tricks. He taught it, as he fondly imagined, to know and love him and to jump over his hands. It showed more aptitude at jumping over his hands than at knowing and loving him. It responded so well to his teaching in jumping that it finally managed to reach the ditch where it remained in discreet hiding from its late discoverer and trainer.
William then caught sight of an old nest in the hedge and went to investigate it. He decided that it must have been a robin’s nest and took it to pieces to see how it was made. He came to the conclusion that he could make as good a one himself and considered the possibilities of making nests for birds during the winter and putting them ready for them in the hedges in the Spring. Then he noticed that the ditch at the further end of the field was full and went there to see if he could find any water creatures. He soaked his boots and stockings, caught a newt, but, having no receptacle in which to keep it (other than his cap which seemed to hold water quite well but only for a short time) he reluctantly returned it to its native element.
Then he remembered his wife and returned slowly and not very eagerly to the barn.
Violet Elizabeth was seated in the corner on an old box in a state of majestic sulks.
“You’ve been at the offith for more’n a day. You’ve been there for monthth and yearth an’ I hate you!”