Cooney

“ This sort of fighting naturally brought the more gallant spirits to the front. A private of the 32nd, called Cooney, played a great part in these independent combats. With a single comrade he charged into an enemy’s battery, shouting, as he leaped over the ridge of earth, “Right and left, extend!” so that the Sepoys imagined a strong body was following, and fled precipitately, leaving the ingenious Cooney and his comrade to spike the guns at leisure! ”

“ View grander scenes than yours where your heights cannot rise. MARTIN CRAEGIN.
“Martin Cooney,” [I have found, upon making inquiry at Pittston, that the boy’s name was Craegin, not Cooney] “is the name of the boy who, deep down in the horrid depths of the Pittston mine, performed a deed of heroic self-sacrifice which shames into insignificance the actions by which many happier men have climbed to fame and honor. Cooney and a companion stood at the bottom of the shaft as the car was about to ascend for the last time. ”

“ She found herself eying their charge as alertly as did Cooney [16] himself, praying that the driven beast might prove less reluctant. When she did break from the trail Mrs. Laithe braced herself to meet Cooney's simultaneous detour, and thereafter, until the indignant animal was again in the beaten way, the rider was engaged in avoiding fearful impact with trees and entanglement with low-growing branches. She debated the wisdom of dropping from the saddle and abandoning herself to the more seemly fate of starvation in this wooded fastness. ”

“ Maybe you might let her have but the lend of it.
Cooney: Where’s the use of calling it a lend when I may be sure I never will see it again? It might be as well for me to earn the value of a charity.
Nestor: You might do that and not repent of it.
Cooney: It is likely I’ll be annoyed with her to the end of my lifetime if she knows I have as much as that to part with. It might be she would be following me to Limerick. [Pg 105]
Nestor: Wait now a minute till I will give you an advice.
Cooney: It is likely my own advice is the best. Look over your own shoulder and do the thing you think right. ”

“ Cooney; and her eyes rested with a brief wistfulness on the shining niece who plumed eagle's feathers for flights where her daughters would never follow. "You'd all give your eye-teeth to be half as pretty and attractive as Cally ..."
"Yes'm," said Chas. "Well, then, Cally, have one more sardine, please. Nothing on earth for the complexion like these fat saline fellows that mother catches fresh every morning with her little hook and line.--Mind, Loo! You're joggling The Bowl."
Carlisle was hardly to be overwhelmed by the Cooneys' teasing, nor perhaps was she seriously displeased by it. ”

“ See Cooney to-night and explain to him that he has a paid-up policy for five-thousand dollars—say in the Calabrian Life. That ’s a foreign company that doesn’t exist. Their agent has a desk in 1047.” (Room 1047 was one of the unlabeled operatives’ rooms of the Babbing Detective Bureau.) “This policy has been made out in favor of Cooney’s two daughters, understand? They ’d get five thousand dollars between them when he died. But he ’s been so pinched for money that he wants to cash in the policy right away. And the agent of the Calabrian Life can only offer him fifteen hundred dollars for it. ”

“ Presently Major Cooney, the easy-going and reminiscent, gave the conversation a new tack.
"And where are your violets, Cally, my dear?" he asked, directing one of his mischievous winks at Looloo. "You must have a flower-shop full at home, if what we hear is true."
Carlisle, on the point of saying something slightly caustic about Chas as a swain, found the tables abruptly turned. All the Cooneys were looking at her. She said with equanimity that, on the contrary, she got so few flowers that when she did have any, she sat up at night with them just like Hen. ”

“ But the latch was not lifted again.
The Snipe, kneeling, looked up at Cooney. Cooney shivered and looked at David Faed. Long Ede, with his back to the fire, softly shook his feet free of the rugs. His eyes searched for the Gaffer's face. But the old man had drawn back into the gloom of his bunk, and the lamplight shone only on a grey fringe of beard. He saw Long Ede's look, though, and answered it quietly as ever.
"Take a brace of guns aloft, and fetch us a look round. Wait, if there's a chance of a shot. The trap works. ”

“ Oh, Cooney's a dear, generally. Sometimes he's stubborn and pretends to know the way better than I do."
"Sound and kind, though, I bet you."
"Oh, yes; but when I want to ride down the east [8] side of the valley, why does he always try to go up that steep trail to the left? Sometimes I've quite a struggle to keep him in the valley road."
"Wa'al, you see I bought him off'n Ewing's kid an' he wants to git back home. Sure's ever we dast let him loose with the saddle band, he's over to Ewing's place, come sun-up. You give him his head any time—he'll carry you straight there." ”

“ Cooney declared that he would starve first. Kathleen scolded him. He accused her of ingratitude. Things went rapidly from bad to worse. It was a cat and dog’s life entirely. And at last Kathleen, in a determined revolt against the domestic situation, put the house in an agent’s hands for sale, and started out to look for a small flat in which she could live economically on her bit of money and make it impossible for her relatives to “impose” on her any longer.
“Oh, now,” Mrs. Cook consoled the old man, “people has to squabble. It gives them somethin’ t’ occupy their minds. ”

“ And for the third time that night Cooney went back.
The Gaffer leaned a little farther over the ledge, and addressed the sick man.
"George, I went to Bill's grave not six hours agone. The snow on it wasn't even disturbed. Neither beast nor man, but only God, can break up the hard earth he lies under. I tell you that, and you may lay to it. Now go to sleep."
Long Ede crouched on the frozen ridge of the hut, with his feet in the sleeping-bag, his knees drawn up, and the two guns laid across them. The creature, whatever its name, that had tried the door, was nowhere to be seen ”

“ Fred continued, "I'm more than sure that must have been Cooney himself. He'd missed his hat, and afraid that we might find it, he came creeping back to get into that bunch of brush, where he could hear every word we spoke. So he knew I was keeping his hat to prove who was in the crowd that tackled us unawares."
"He just knew that if his hat were ever shown, he'd be in the soup," observed Colon, "so he thought it worth while to take all kinds of chances in the hope of copping it again. ”

“ Accursed contentment flowed in the young Cooneys' blood. They had abilities enough, but the sane acquisitive gift was not in them. They were poor, but unashamed. They were breezy, keen, adventurous, without fatigue. They claimed the gasoline-cleaning establishment as their private garage, challenging any car under six thousand dollars to beat the expensive smell. A large and very popular group of family jokes centred about the plant of the legman.
Carlisle Heth "came to supper" with the Cooneys, as agreed, on the Thursday following the magic afternoon at Willie's apartment. ”

“ May I die if I ain't as innocent of that as a kid."
"Better not say too much," Dallas suggested. "Really, I am not curious to hear. And now, come along. You can have a cab if you like. Perhaps you may come out of this better than you expect--if you are only candid."
"Don't be in a hurry," Cooney pleaded. "I'll tell you everything, sir, I will--straight--everything from start to finish. Sit down and listen to me; and you need not be afraid that I shall try and escape. I don't want to."
CHAPTER XLIV. THE STORY OF A CRIME.
Dallas shrugged his shoulders indifferently. ”

“ But Melton must take his warriors and go back to his people.”
“We will not turn back,” replied Melton, angrily, “unless we take the friends we seek with us. Let Napope clear the way, or we will try to go on without his leave.”
“The white men will find knives and hatchets in the path,” replied the chief, grimly. “Go back as you came, and all shall be well; refuse, and you shall find that my young men carry guns.”
“I don’t like this,” whispered Cooney Joe in the ear of Melton. “They’ve got twice as many warriors as we have, and the chances are good for a fight. ”

“ People always like to believe bad things about rival places rather than the home town. So we'd better shut down on that hat part of the story, and keep it quiet."
"Course it doesn't matter if we let it be known we were set upon, only we mustn't say we suspect any particular boys," Colon went on to remark, with a little confusion that told Fred he must have already been telling something about the encounter, though not mentioning names.
"Call that settled, then," Bristles added, "but it's too bad, when you had the case framed up against Cooney for fair and keeps. ”

“ I will go and earn my own living.... I'll go and live with the Cooneys!"
The two women gazed at each other. Over the mother's face there spread a slow flush; the round, purple birthmark darkened. Cally spoke again, with deadly earnestness.
"I did think you understood about this.... If you persuade Hugo to walk down from Washington on his knees.... I'll not see him."
Mrs. Heth, curiously, had been brought down in full flight: perhaps by the force of that wild upstarting, perhaps by the grisly threat about the Cooneys. Carlisle in a flare-up had always required a certain handling. ”

“ Now, Coonie did not really want any honey. All he wanted to do was to play a joke on his friend, but it very often happens that the practical joker gets the worst of it in the end. And as Coonie stepped up to the hive and pretended to knock, he put his paw right down on top of the Queen Bee, whom he did not see sunning herself on the ledge.
[61] The Queen Bee has no sting, you know, and cannot defend herself. She is by no means helpless, however. She has, in fact, an entire army ready to fight for her at a moment’s call. ”

“ Straight as a string, clean as a whistle was Coogan, six feet in his stockings, with a body that played up to every inch of his height, black hair, jet black, black eyes that laughed with you, never at you, a smile and a cheery nod always—the kind of a man that makes you feel every time you see him that the world isn’t such an eternal, dismal grind, after all. ”

“ Coonie answered, a little proudly, to think he knew so much. “The honey is kept inside.”
“But how do we get at it?” asked Chuck. “Those little holes in front look hardly big enough for me to get my paw through, much less my head and shoulders.”
“Oh,” laughed Coonie, “how stupid you are! You just go up and knock very loudly at the door and when a bee comes out, you ask if he hasn’t something to eat for a poor fellow, who has come a long way and is very hungry and tired. But should he pay no attention to you, hit him with your paw. ”

“ Mr. Cioni saw the man approach jauntily. Who, he wondered, can be full of bounce at this hour—one of the new people from the field hospital? But as the man came into the cone of light from the shaded Coleman lantern he saw that the fellow wasn't army, that he wore in fact the uniform of an old-timer who had been through the day and a half on the spot. The uniform was a stained and shapeless suit, mud-caked shoes, red eyes and a growth of beard. ”

“ Mrs. Coon said nothing more. She stood up on her hind legs and pulled one of the tall stalks down until she could reach that long, green thing that grew there. In a jiffy she had torn it from its stalk. And then she stripped the green covering off it. "Try that!" said Mrs. Coon with a smile. ”

“ Shug-la-wina began.
"Wait, thou favored youth! It was Kusiunek we saw to-day, not merely Nenook, the bear. Why, ye ask me, did he then flee from Coonee, leaving his meat to us? My people, it was because Coonee also is blessed with powerful spirits." At the questioning grunts he heard on all sides he waved his fat hands. "I know it is not often that women are blessed with keyukut. When they are, they are thrice blessed. My people, she will grow to be great, to command the spirits of the air and the sea and the ice—even greater than I, Kerallkuk. ”

“ When it was over, everybody said, “Ah, that dear old thing!” Then there was an outbreak of deeper voices from the stairs, with lustier laughter and heavier steps.
The gentlemen appeared, talking loudly as they entered. Koenig was back at the organ and playing as if he wished it were the 'cello and the drum and the whole brass band. Glory was watching everything; it was beginning to be very funny. Suddenly it ceased to be so. One of the gentlemen was saying, in a tired drawl: “Old Koenig again! How the old boy lasts! ”

“ Then thou wilt not wreak vengeance further on the people. Then thou wilt save them—thou wilt bring them the seal and the caribou—and break the famine. Kusiunek, for them I come to you, into thine own shadows!"
Little Coonee paused, shivering with terror. She wondered if Kusiunek would wait for her to come to him in the shadows, or whether he would reach into the Singing House, now that she had given herself, and take her now. Then the people would find only her lifeless form on the skin floor of the temple. ”

“ My cosmopolite was named E. Rushmore Coglan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney Island. He is to establish a new “attraction” there, he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And then his conversation rang along parallels of latitude and longitude. He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a table d’hôte grape fruit. ”