The old heart hunger for Mary Malone was back in
stronger force than ever before; and because of him Jimmy lay
stretched on Five Mile Hill.
"Dannie, you are just fine!" said Mary. " I've been almost wild to
get home, because I thought iverything would be ruined, and instid
of that it's all ixactly the way I do it. Do hurry, and get riddy
for supper. Oh, it's so good to be home again! I want to make
garden, and fix my flowers, and get some little chickens and
turkeys into my fingers."
"I have to go home, and wash, and spruce up a bit, for ladies,"
said Dannie, leaving the barn.
Mary made no reply, and it came to him that she expected it.
"Damned if I will!" he said, as he started home. "If she wants to
come here, and force herself on me, she can, but she canna mak' me"
Just then Dannie stepped in his door, and slowly gazed about him.
In a way his home was as completely transformed as hers. He washed
his face and hands, and started for a better coat. His sleeping
room shone with clean windows, curtained in snowy white. A freshly
ironed suit of underclothing and a shirt lay on his bed. Dannie
stared at them.
"She think's I'll tog up in them, and come courtin'" he growled.
"I'll show her if I do! I winna touch them!"
To prove that he would not, Dannie caught them up in a wad, and
threw them into a corner. That showed a clean sheet, fresh pillow,
and new covers, invitingly spread back. Dannie turned as white as
the pillow at which he stared.
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