“That’s just what I was hoping you’d suggest, Mr. MacAllister. You know, of course, they can’t stay on together there alone. They wouldn’t be a Happy Family long. They’d get to fighting in no time, and about half of ’em would get killed quick.”
There was a moment of deliberative silence. No smoking was allowed in the mill, but the hands all chewed. Jimmy Wright, marking the bright face of a freshly sawed deal about eight feet away, spat unerringly upon its exact centre, then giving a hitch to his trousers, he remarked––
“Let the Boss an’ the Boy settle it. They onderstand it the best.”
“That’s right, Jimmy! We’ll fix it!” said Black Angus. “Now, for mine, I’ve got a fancy for the parrot an’ the pig. That there Ananias-and-Sapphira, she’s a bird an’ no mistake. An’ the pig––MacPhairrson calls him Ebenezer––he’s that smart ye’d jest kill yerself laffin’ to see him. An’, moreover, he’s that clean––he’s clean as a lady. I’d like to have them two around my shanty. An’ I’m ready to take one more if necessary.” 36
“Then I think you’ll have to take the coon too, Mr. MacAllister,” said the Boy. “He and Ebenezer just love each other, an’ they wouldn’t be happy separated.”
“All right. The coon fer me!” responded the Boss. “Which of the critters will you take yerself?”
“I’ll wait and see which the rest of the boys want,” replied the Boy. “I like them all, and they all know me pretty well. I’ll take what’s left.”
“Well, then,” said Jimmy Wright, “me for Susan. That blame moose calf’s the only one of the critters that I could ever git along with. She’s a kind of a fool, an’ seems to like me!” And he decorated the bright deal once more.
“Me an’ my missus, we’ll be proud to take them two white cats!” put in grey old Billy Smith. “She sez, sez she, they be the han’somest cats in two counties. Mebbe they won’t be so lonesome with us as they’d be somewheres else, bein’s as our shanty’s so nigh MacPhairrson’s bridge they kin see for themselves all the time there ain’t no one on to the island any more!”
“Stumpy’s not spoken for!” reminded the Boy. The dog was popular, and half a dozen volunteered for him at once.