would return shortly, and finish anything she wanted done; but when was
a lonely, disappointed woman ever reasonable?

She set the dish water on the stove, wiped her hands on her apron, and
walking to the garden, picked up the spade and began turning great
pieces of earth. She had never done rough farm work, such as women all
about her did; she had little exercise during the long, cold winter,
and the first half dozen spadefuls tired her until the tears of
self-pity rolled.

"I wish there was a turtle as big as a wash tub in the river" she
sobbed, "and I wish it would eat that old Black Bass to the last scale.
And I'm going to take the shotgun, and go over to the embankment, and
poke it into the tunnel, and blow the old Kingfisher through into the
cornfield. Then maybe Dannie won't go off too and leave me. I want this
onion bed spaded right away, so I do."

"Drop that! Idjit! What you doing?" yelled Jimmy.

"Mary, ye goose!" panted Dannie, as he came hurrying across the yard.
"Wha' do ye mean? Ye knew I'd be back in a minute! Jimmy juist called
me to hear the Bass splash. I was comin' back. Mary, this amna fair."

Dannie took the spade from her hand, and Mary fled sobbing to the house.

"What's the row?" demanded Jimmy of the suffering Dannie.

"I'd juist started spadin' this onion bed," explained Dannie. "Of
course, she thought we were going to stay all day."

"With no poles, and no bait, and no grub? She didn't think any such a
domn thing," said Jimmy. "You don't know women! She just got to the
place where it's her time to spill brine, and raise a rumpus about
something, and aisy brathin' would start her. Just let her bawl it out,
and thin--we'll get something dacent for dinner."

Dannie turned a spadeful of earth and broke it open, and Jimmy squatted
by the can, and began picking out the angle worms.

"I see where we dinna fish much this summer," said Dannie, as he
waited. "And where we fish close home when we do, and where all the
work is done before we go."

"Aha, borrow me rose-colored specks!" cried Jimmy. "I don't see
anything but what I've always seen. I'll come and go as I please, and
Mary can do the same. I don't throw no 'jeminy fit' every time a woman
acts the fool a little, and if you'd lived with one fiftane years you
wouldn't either. Of course we'll make the garden. Wish to goodness it
was a beer garden! Wouldn't I like to plant a lot of hop seed and see
rows of little green beer bottles hum