Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/46

 no misery hatchin' in my jints this kind of weather. I just dreens the drugs of that misery off in sweat."

"Ain't Angus come down and started on them putaters yet?" Mrs. Cowgill inquired sharply.

"Yassum, he's out there on the po'ch josselin' 'em around, playin' train like he's always a doin'."

Mrs. Cowgill set her foot against the screen door, which had fringed paper tacked along the top to make a commotion among the flies waiting a chance to wing into that paradise of alluring scents. It was equal to opening the door against a driving rain; some of it was bound to get in. A few fortunate ones of the impertinent loafers winged past her, in defiance of Mrs. Cowgill's savage batting with open hand. There was very little hope of refreshment for a fly, once he had made his way by trick and evasion into the kitchen. Everything there was so hot that a sip of it meant instant death to the most tropical fly that ever buzzed.

Mrs. Cowgill let the door close gently, to stand beside it with displeasure coming over the strained look of worriment and longing in her tired face. Angus Valorous Macdougal was sitting on the edge of the shady porch twenty feet or so beyond her, a large bucket of potatoes beside him, a pan to receive the pared ones standing a little way along. Between bucket and pan Angus had a string of the humble vegetables stretched out like a line of freight cars, headed by an immense potato with a protuberance that served for the engine's smokestack.

Angus Valorous was chuffing and hissing equal to