He knows she
told him she didn't want to come. But he would have it. For half
a cent she'd go back right now. And, Heavens above! Is he going
to be all 'day picking up a few little worms?
She cannot finish her sentences for her gulps, for he is tamping
down in her insides the reluctant angleworms that do not want to
die, two or three writhing in his bill at once, until he looks like
Jove's eagle with its mouth full of thunderbolts. And all the time
he is chip-chipping and flirting his tail, and saying: "How's that?
All right? Hey? Here's another. How's that? All right? Hey?
Open now. Like that? Here's one.
Oh, a beaut! Here's two fat ones? Great? Hey? Here y' go. Touch
the spot? Hey? More? Sure Mike. Lots of 'em. Wide now. Boss.
Hey? Wait a second - yes, honey. In a second. . . . I got him.
Here's the kind you like. Oh, yes, do. Do take one more. Oh, you
better."
"D' ye think I'm made o' rubber?" she snaps at him. "I know I'll
have indigestion, and you'll be to bla - Mercy land! Them eggs!"
and she gathers up her skirts and flits. He escorts her gallantly,
but returns to pick a few for himself, and to cock his head
knowingly at the boy, as much as to say: "Man of family, by Ned.
Or - or soon will be. Oh, yes, any minute now, any minute."
And if I remember rightly, he even winks at the boy with a wink whose
full significance the boy does not learn till many years after when
it dawns upon him that it meant: "You got to make allowances for 'em.
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