Page:Over the Sliprails - 1900.djvu/112

 the presence of the chimney, and where, therefore, he felt a breath cooler. He took his fiddle from a convenient shelf, tuned it slowly and carefully, holding his pipe (in his mouth) well up and to one side, as if the fiddle were an inquisitive and restless baby. He played “Little Drops o’ Brandy” three times, right through, without variations, blinking solemnly the while; then he put the violin carefully back in its box, and started to cut up another pipeful.

“You should have gone, Johnny,” said the haggard little woman.

“Rackin’ the horse out a night like this,” retorted Johnny, “and startin’ ploughin’ to-morrow. It ain’t worth while. Let them come for me if they want me. Dance on a night like this! Why! they’ll dance in——”

“But you promised. It won’t do you no good, Johnny.”

“It won’t do me no harm.”

The little woman went on stitching.

“It’s smotherin’ hot,” said Johnny, with an impatient oath. “I don’t know whether I’ll turn in, or turn out, under the shed to-night. It’s too d——d hot to roost indoors.”

She bent her head lower over the patch. One smoked and the other stitched in silence for twenty minutes or so, during which time Johnny might be supposed to have been deliberating listlessly as to whether he’d camp out on account of the heat, or turn in. But he broke the silence with a clout at a mosquito on the nape of his neck, and a bad word.