It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 90

"A 'V.' Don't ye take on," said Abner. "They couldn't have been ten minutes among ours, and there were but two. And don't you blow me up, for such a thing might happen to the carefulest shepherd that ever was."

"I won't blow ye up, Will Abner," said George. "It is my luck not yours that has done this. It was always so. From a game of cricket upward I never had my neighbor's luck. If the flock are not tainted I'll give you five pounds, and my purse is not so deep as some. If they are, take your knife and drive it into my heart. I'll forgive you that as I do this.

Carlo! let me look at you. See here, he is all over some stinking ointment. It is off those sheep. I knew it. 'Twasn't likely a pointer dog would be down on strange sheep like a shepherd's dog by the sight.

'Twas this stuff offended him. Heaven's will be done."

"Let us hope the best, and not meet trouble half way."

"Yes" said George feebly. "Let us hope the best."

"Don't I hear that Thompson has an ointment that cures the red scab?"

"So they say."

George whistled to his pony. The pony came to him. George did not treat him as we are apt to treat a horse--like a riding machine. He used to speak to him and caress him when he fed him and when he made his bed, and the horse followed him about like a dog.

In half an hour's sharp riding they were at Thompson's, an invaluable man that sold and bought animals, doctored animals, and kept a huge boiler in which bullocks were reduced to a few pounds of grease in a very few hours.

"You have an ointment that is good for the scab, sir?"

"That I have, farmer. Sold some to a neighbor of yours day before yesterday."

"Who was that?"

"A newcomer. Vesey is his name."

George groaned. "How do you use it, if you please?"

"Shear 'em close, rub the ointment well in, wash 'em every two days, and rub in again."

"Give me a stone of it."

"A stone of my ointment! Well! you are the wisest man I have come across this year or two. You shall have it, sir."

George rode home with his purchase.

Abner turned up his nose at it, and was inclined to laugh at George's fears. But George said to himself, "I have Susan to think of as well as myself. Besides," said he a little bitterly, "I haven't a grain of luck. If I am to do any good I must be twice as prudent and thrice as industrious as my neighbors or I shall fall behind them. Now, Abner, we'll shear them close."

"Shear them! Why it is not two months since they were all sheared."

"And then we will rub a little of this ointment into them."

"What! before we see any sign of the scab among them? I wouldn't do that if they were mine."

"No more would I if they were yours," replied George almost fiercely.

"But they are not yours, Will Abner. They are unlucky George's."

During the next three days four hundred sheep were clipped and anointed.

Jacky helped clip, but he would not wear gloves, and George would not let him handle the ointment without them, suspecting mercury.

At last George yielded to Abner's remonstrances, and left off shearing and anointing.

Abner altered his opinion when one day he found a sheep rubbing like mad against a tree, and before noon half a dozen at the same game. Those two wretched sheep had tainted the flock.

Abner hung his head when he came to George with this ill-omened news. He expected a storm of reproaches. But George was too deeply distressed for any petulances of anger. "It is my fault," said he, "I was the master, and I let my servant direct me. My own heart told me what to do, yet I must listen to a fool and a hireling that cared not for the sheep. How should he? they weren't his, they were mine to lose and mine to save. I had my choice, I took it, I lost them. Call Jacky and let's to work and save here and there one, if so be G.o.d shall be kinder to them than I have been."

From that hour there was but little rest morning, noon or night. It was nothing but an endless routine of anointing and was.h.i.+ng, was.h.i.+ng and anointing sheep. To the credit of Mr. Thompson it must be told that of the four hundred who had been taken in time no single sheep died; but of the others a good many. There are incompetent shepherds as well as incompetent statesmen and doctors, though not so many. Abner was one of these. An acute Australian shepherd would have seen the more subtle signs of this terrible disease a day or two before the patient sheep began to rub themselves with fury against the trees and against each other; but Abner did not; and George did not profess to have a minute knowledge of the animal, or why pay a shepherd? When this Herculean labor and battle had gone on for about a week, Abner came to George, and with a hang-dog look begged him to look out for another shepherd.

"Why, Will! surely you won't think to leave me in this strait? Why three of us are hardly able for the work, and how can I make head against this plague with only the poor sav--with only Jacky, that is first-rate at light work till he gets to find it dull--but can't lift a sheep and fling her into the water, as the like of us can?"

"Well, ye see," said Abner, doggedly, "I have got the offer of a place with Mr. Meredith, and he won't wait for me more than a week."

"He is a rich man, Will, and I am a poor one," said George in a faint, expostulating tone. Abner said nothing, but his face showed he had already considered this fact from his own point of view.

"He could spare you better than I can; but you are right to leave a falling house that you have helped to pull down."

"I don't want to go all in a moment. I can stay a week till you get another."

"A week! how can I get a shepherd in this wilderness at a week's notice?

You talk like a fool."

"Well, I can't stay any longer. You know there is no agreement at all between us, but I'll stay a week to oblige you."

"You'll oblige me, will you?" said George, with a burst of indignation; "then oblige me by packing up your traps and taking your ugly face out of my sight before dinner-time this day. Stay, my man, here are your wages up to twelve o'clock to-day, take 'em and out of my sight, you dirty rascal. Let me meet misfortune with none but friends by my side.

Away with you, or I shall forget myself and dirty my hands with your mean carca.s.s."

The hireling slunk off, and as he slunk George stormed and thundered after him, "And wherever you may go, may sorrow and sickness--no!"

George turned to Jacky, who sat coolly by, his eyes sparkling at the prospect of a row. "Jacky!" said he, and then he seemed to choke, and could not say another word.

"Suppose I get the make-thunder, then you shoot him."

"Shoot him! what for?"

"Too much bungality,* shoot him dead. He let the sheep come that have my two fingers so on their backs;" here Jacky made a V with his middle and forefinger, "so he kill the other sheep--yet still you not shoot him--that so stupid I call."

* Stupidity.

"Oh Jacky, hus.h.!.+ don't you know me better than to think I would kill a man for killing my sheep. Oh fie! oh fie! No, Jacky, Heaven forbid I should do the man any harm; but when I think of what he has brought on my head, and then to skulk and leave me in my sore strait and trouble, me that never gave him ill language as most masters would; and then, Jacky, do you remember when he was sick how kind you and I were to him--and now to leave us. There, I must go into the house, and you come and call me out when that man is off the premises--not before."

At twelve o'clock selfish Abner started to walk thirty miles to Mr.

Meredith's. Smarting under the sense of his contemptibleness and of the injury he was doing his kind, poor master, he shook his fist at the house and told Jacky he hoped the scab would rot the flock, and that done fall upon the bipeds, on his own black hide in particular. Jacky only answered with his eye. When the man was gone he called George.

George's anger had soon died. Jacky found him reading a little book in search of comfort, and when they were out in the air Jacky saw that his eyes were rather red.

"Why you cry?" said Jacky. "I very angry because you cry."

"It is very foolish of me," said George, apologetically, "but three is a small company, and we in such trouble; I thought I had made a friend of him. Often I saw he was not worth his wages, but out of pity I wouldn't part with him when I could better have spared him than he me, and now--there--no more about it. Work is best for a sore heart, and mine is sore and heavy, too, this day."

Jacky put his finger to his head, and looked wise. "First you listen me--this one time I speak a good many words. Dat stupid fellow know nothing, and so because you not shoot him a good way* behind--you very stupid. One," counted Jacky, touching his thumb, "he know nothing with these (pointing to his eyes). Jacky know possum,** Jacky know kangaroo, know turkey, know snake, know a good many, some with legs like dis (four fingers), some with legs like dis (two flngers)--dat stupid fellow know nothing but sheep, and not know sheep, let him die too much. Know nothing with 'um eyes. One more (touching his forefinger). Know nothing with dis (touching his tongue). Jacky speak him good words, he speak Jacky bad words. Dat so stupid--he know nothing with dis.