"You'll be Member of Parliament some day, with a gift like that," Jack prophesied.
"Fer the constitooency of Sittin' Crow," Jake added, maliciously, but the point of his shaft was lost on the audience.
"Weel, Ah'm thinkin' Ah'll be next," remarked the placid Andy Smith, tapping his clay pipe and returning it to his pocket. From somewhere he produced a kit of steel-worker's tools; wonderful pieces of British workmanship, they were. I believe Jack still carries some of them in the back seat of his automobile.
"No as much as Ah could o' wisht," said Andy, modestly, "but richt guid in the makin', and they'll come gey handy when you buy that threshing-mill for the neighbourhood."
Just then we observed the color mantling to the tawny hair of Ole Hansen.
"Ay tank by Yimminy Ay mak myself maybe a yoke (joke)," the tall Swede confessed. "Ay say to Olga, 'By dam, Olga, what you tank, Ay tak a load o' hay?' She say, 'Ole, you get more fool all the time. Hay for a marriaging! What you tank dey are, oxes?' Den Ay say, 'Well, den, w'at else?' an' she say, 'Dere ain't nodding else,' an' den Ay say 'Dah hay gets it', an' so it does."
"I hope you're not going to bring it in, too," said Lucy Burke.
"Yah!" said Ole, opening his mouth in a great circular orifice and laughing silently while his head rocked in inward appreciation of Mrs. Burke's joke. "Ay tank she make good bedding, but not to-night. Ay pitch 'im off beside dah barn."
We found it was true. Ole, having nothing to bring but a load of hay, in the fullness of his heart brought that.
But an even more striking token of that community spirit which was the salvation of those early days was now to be presented. Sneezit had slipped out while the hay was under discussion and now came thundering in, his broad back bearing a whole dressed carcass of pig. Sneezit did not trust his English to make any remarks, but he smiled broadly under his bristly mustache. . . . . But what I saw was a dug-out full of children, with eyes peering through the gloom, and little, wistful, silent mouths.