Sam dropped a hand on Poke’s shoulder. “Translate, won’t you? You’re worse than old Cæsar when he tells about building his bridge.”
“Darn that dog!” wailed Step.
Sam tightened his grip on Poke’s plump shoulder. “So there was a dog, was there?” said he. “That’s a start, anyway. Go on!”
Poke wriggled free. “Yes; there was a dog, and it was that big hound of Mr. Mercer’s. And it came along, and smelled Step’s chicken, and grabbed for it, and gobbled it, and knocked over my basket of eggs, and ran away. And we chased it, but couldn’t catch it. And Step lost his chicken, and every one of my eggs was smashed. And ain’t that trouble enough for one day?”
“But I don’t quite understand. It—it’s sort of complicated. I don’t see how the hound could grab the chicken and upset your basket all at once.”
Poke shifted weight from one foot to the other. “Well—well, you see, we—we’d sort of stopped to look at a knife Tom Appleton had bought; and we’d set the bundle and the basket on a stone wall; and the dog hit both when he jumped for one. That was the way of it. And say! did you ever hear of anything worse?”
Sam’s smile was bitter. “Anything worse!” he repeated scornfully. What was a poor tale of broken eggs and looted chicken to one who, by pure mischance, had shot a man?
Poke resented his friend’s tone. “Huh! Much you know about it! Dollar and ten cents’ worth of eggs gone—just like that!”
“And a five-and-a-half-pound rooster—five and a half pounds dressed!” chimed in Step.
“Oh, well, that was hard luck,” Sam admitted. It had occurred to him that it was not wise to withhold sympathy if he would avoid suspicion of cherishing some terrible secret of his own.