“If everything and everybody would only wake up,” moaned Simon, chafing at the stillness about him.
“Wake up. Arn’t I here,” called Spangles, the Rooster, as he proclaimed to the world “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
“I’m glad to hear you say so,” snapped Simon.
“Top of the morning to you, sir,” said Spangles. “Don’t get crabby with your neighbours. Hi! there,” he called out, as he saw Tony racing after a rabbit.
“Never mind that nimble scratcher,” neighed Simon. “Come here and I will tell you something. I am going to the Mill—are you ready to join me?”
“Rats live there,” he said to himself, “rats.”
And when they were on the high road bound for the Mill, Simon began:
“I’ve been bothering about this a long time.”
“Never thought you bothered about anything. You’re such a quiet old chap, Si. But hurry up! Do! There’s a shrew waltzing along the road, and I’m getting impatient. Do be quick; I can’t go marching by your side in this procession-like fashion for ever and a day, now can I?”
“Well,” began Simon, which told of an ache at his heart, “Master Harry’s coming home. He’s been away for years and years. He was one of the liveliest lads you’d meet in a day’s march. But he had one big fault. When he wasn’t romping he was learning lessons. And how those lessons did spoil him, they took all the fun out of him. Master says they put sense into his head, but what does anyone want with sense, answer me that? and you know it isn’t proper for a lively lad to be thoughtful. Well, as I was saying, he was a fine sturdy chap was Master Harry—that’s years before you were born, nipper.”
“Well, now he is coming home, at least he has written a letter to say so. He says that he has grown rich, and has been to foreign places, and is bringing a horse and a dog—you hear that Tony, a horse and a dog.”
Simon said this so seriously that Tony looked up.
“I’m the only horse here, and you are the only dog here, and Tower Tighe is but a small farm.”
“Well, it appears to me that our whole life will be changed.”
“It will be jollier for both of us, if you mean that,” said Tony. “There will be a friend for you and a companion for me, for if you just ask yourself, Simon, we ain’t—er—quite companions, now are we?”
“You’re such a featherhead, how could you expect to be a what-d’ye-say to me. You never could think of things in the right way.”