Читать книгу From the Land of the Snow-Pearls: Tales from Puget Sound онлайн

35 страница из 57

“Oh, you can smile an’ turn your head on one side, but you’ll whistle another tune before long—or I’ll miss my guess. Isaphene, I’ve been savin’ up chicken an’ butter money ever since we come to Puget Sound; then I’ve always got the money for the strawberry crop, an’ for the geese an’ turkeys, an’ the calves, an’ so on. Your paw’s been real good about such things.”

“I don’t call it bein’ good,” said Isaphene. “Why shouldn’t he let you have the money? You planted, an’ weeded, an’ picked the strawberries; an’ you fed an’ set the chickens, an’ gethered the eggs; an’ you’ve had all the tendin’ of the geese an’ turkeys an’ calves—to say nothin’ of the cows bawlin’ over the bars,” she added, with a sly laugh. “I’d say you only had your rights when you get the money for such things.”

“Oh, yes, that’s fine talk.” Mrs. Bridges nodded her head with an air of experience. “But it ain’t all men-folks that gives you your rights; so when one does, I say he deserves credit.”

“Well, I wouldn’t claim anybody’d been good to me just because he give me what I’d worked for an’ earned. Now, if he’d give you all the money from the potato patch every year, or the hay meadow, or anything he’d done all the workin’ with himself—I’d call that good in him. He never done anything like that, did he?”