CHAPTER II.
JERRY AND OSCAR.
After Clinton had finished his duck-house, he noticed that the water was getting quite low in the brook. It was the month of August, and the season had been very hot and dry, so that the springs in the hills, which fed the brook, had almost given out. While he was thinking what his ducks would do for water if the brook should dry entirely up, it occurred to him that he might make a little pond, to be filled from the brook, which would afford a good place for his ducks to swim, and might also prolong the supply of water. Having obtained his father’s consent, he set about the job at once. He was busily at work, digging out the peat or mud for this pond, one warm afternoon, when he happened to look up and saw two boys by the side of him. As their eyes met, one of them exclaimed,—
“An’ faith, Patrick, what are ye after doin’ now? Is it for goold ye are diggin’, sure? or are ye goin’ to make a river of the brook? Why don’t ye spake, ye bogtrotter, hey?”
Clinton laughed at this rough salutation, but perhaps he felt that there was a slight tinge of unkindness in the joke, as he turned his eye from the neat dress of the speaker, to his own heavy boots loaded with mud, and his coarse and well-worn pantaloons, the bottoms of which were tucked into his boots.
“But you do look just like a Paddy, Clin, I’ll leave it to Jerry if you don’t,” continued the speaker, who was a cousin of Jerry Preston’s, and was named Oscar.
Jerry agreed that it was so. “But,” he continued, “what are you trying to make, Clin? I should really like to know.”
“Wait a few days and you will see,” replied Clinton.
“The same old story,” said Oscar, “‘wait and you’ll see;’ you needn’t think you can get anything more than that out of him, Jerry.”
“I guess he has taken a contract to dig a cellar for somebody,” continued Jerry. “See him put in!” he added, as Clinton resumed his work.
“And I guess,” said Oscar, “that he isn’t making anything in particular, but is only digging for amusement. What capital fun it must be to dig mud this warm day!”