Page 15 - A Little Bush Maid

"Here, boy!"

Puck did not relinquish his grip. He looked pleadingly at his little mistress
across the swagman’s trouser-leg. Norah struck her saddle sharply with her

whip.

"Here, sir!--drop it!"

Puck dropped it reluctantly, and came across to Bobs, his head hanging.

The swagman sat down on the ground and nursed his leg.

"That served you right," Norah said, with judicial severity. "You hadn’t any

business to grab my watch. Now, if you’ll go up to the house they’ll give
you some tucker and a rag for your leg!"

She rode off, whistling to Puck. The swagman gaped and muttered various
remarks. He did not call at the house.

Norah was supposed to manage the fowls, but her management was almost

entirely ornamental, and it is to be feared that the poultry yard would have
fared but poorly had it depended upon her alone. All the fowls were hers.
She said so, and no one contradicted her. Still, whenever one was wanted

for the table, it was ruthlessly slain. And it was black Billy who fed them
night and morning, and Mrs. Brown who gathered the eggs, and saw that

the houses were safely shut against the foxes every evening. Norah’s chief
part in the management lay in looking after the setting hens. At first she
firmly checked the broody instincts by shutting them callously under boxes

despite pecks and loud protests. Later, when their mood refused to change,
she loved to prepare them soft nests in boxes, and to imprison them there

until they took kindly to their seclusion. Then it was hard work to wait
three weeks until the first fluffy heads peeped out from the angry mother’s
wing, after which Norah was a blissfully adoring caretaker until the downy

balls began to get ragged, as the first wing and tail feathers showed. Then
the chicks became uninteresting, and were handed over to Black Billy.

Besides her own pets there were Jim’s.