Missy's first feathers, however, were not such as she might stick in her hat, and her first blood was exceedingly ill-shed. To be sure, she knew no better until the deed was done, and the quaint dead bird with the big head and beak carried home in triumph to Mr. Teesdale. That triumph was short-lived.
"Got one at last!" cried Missy, as she dropped her prey at the old man's feet. Mr. Teesdale was smoking in the verandah, and he pulled a long face behind his smile.
"So I see," said he; "but do you know what it is you have got, Missy?"
"No, I don't, but I mean to have him stuffed, whatever he is."
"I think I wouldn't, Missy, if I were you. It's a laughing jackass."
"Yes? Well, I guess he won't laugh much more!"
"And there's a five-pound penalty for shooting him, Missy. He kills the snakes, therefore you are not allowed by law to kill him. You have broken the law, my dear, and the best thing that we can do is to bury the victim and say nothing about it to anybody." He was laughing, but the girl stood looking at her handiwork with a very red face.
"I thought I was to shoot everything," she said. "I thought that everything eat the fruit and things. I never knew I was so beastly cruel!"
She put away the gun, and spent most of that summer's day in reading to Mr. Teesdale, for whom she had developed a very pretty affection. They read longest in the parlour, with the window shut, and the blind down, and a big fly buzzing between it and the glass. The old man fell sound asleep in the end, whereupon Missy sat very still indeed, just to watch him. And what it was exactly in the worn and white-haired face that fetched the tears to her eyes and the shame to her cheeks, on this particular occasion, there is no saying; but Missy was scarcely Missy during the remainder of the afternoon.
That evening, however, had already been pitched upon for some 'possum-shooting, given a good moon. From the moment she was reminded of this, at tea-time, the visitor was herself again, and something more. It is saying a good deal, but they had not hitherto seen her in such excessively high spirits as overcame her now. She lent Mr. Tees-dale a hand to load some cartridges in the gunroom while the others were milking; but she was rather a hindrance than a help to that patient old man. She would put in the shot before the powder. Then she got into pure infantile mischief, letting off caps under David's coat-tails, and doing her best to make him sharp with her. Herein she failed; nevertheless, the elder was glad enough to hand her over to the younger Teesdale when the time came, and with it a moon without a cloud. Neither Arabella nor her father was going, but three of the men were who worked on the place, and with whom John William was obliged to leave Missy alone in the yard while he went for the dogs. It was only for a minute or two; but the men were in fits of laughter when he returned. It appeared that Missy had been giving them some sort of a dance under that limelit moon.