Dinghy

“ Road and rail keep fast company through Farley Dingle, the deep, picturesque defile, by which one descends from Much Wenlock to the vale of Severn. A brawling stream, as it winds adown the dingle, has been ponded in and set to drive some rustic mills upon its banks. ”

“ I told Dinky-Dunk if we'd ever put a chameleon on that shack-wall he'd have died of brain-fag trying to make good on the color-schemes. So Dinky-Dunk made Olie take a day off and ply the brush. But the smell of paint made me think of Channel passages, so off I went with Dinky-Dunk, a la team and buckboard, to the Dixon Ranch to see about some horses, nearly seventy miles there and back. It was a glorious autumn day, and a glorious ride, with "Bronk" and "Tumble-Weed" loping along the double-trail and the air like crystal. ”

“ There’s no ease for the mouth where one tooth aches, as the Chinese say.
Dinky-Dunk, I think, has an inkling of how I feel. He is very thoughtful and kind in small things, and sometimes looks at me with the eyes of a boy’s dog which has been forbidden to follow the village gang a-field. And it’s not that I dislike him, or that he grates on me, or that I’m not thankful enough for the thousand and one little kind things he does. But it’s rubbing on the wrong side of the glass. It can’t bring back the past. My husband of to-day is not 308 the Dinky-Dunk I once knew and loved and laughed with. ”

“ How little trouble her life gives her. It's a pity we can't all say as much, or have as little on our minds.'
`Whose fault's that?' says Jim. `The dingo must live as well as the collie or the sheep either. One's been made just the same as the other. I've often watched a dingo turn round twice, and then pitch himself down in the long grass like as if he was dead. He's not a bad sort, old dingo, and has a good time of it as long as it lasts.'
`Yes, till he's trapped or shot or poisoned some day, which he always is,' said Aileen bitterly. ”

“ Now if any of our readers have ever seen a small Indian canoe, they will detect at once the mischievous object of Dingle in asking his companion to "jump into" this one. It is an impossibility for a person who does not understand them, to spring in without going overboard. It is precisely similar to putting on a pair of skates for the first time. Unless you have tried it before, and know how to do it, you are sure to be deceived. But Jenkins had no suspicions, judging from the last remark of Dingle that he was perfectly serious. ”

“ No one was at the stable to saddle Dandy, but she had learned to ride as well without a saddle as with, so she got on the pony's back and rode toward the river.
Away from the noise of the shearing shed, how quiet and lovely it all seemed. The wind swayed gently the branches of the great she-oaks as a mopoke's mournful note came from the gum trees. Flying foxes flapped their wings and [72] she came upon the playground of a satin-bower [8] bird, the first she had ever seen, although her uncle had told her about them. ”

“ One day Johnnie Green was in a great hurry. He was going to ride over the hill, to play with some friends. Running [Pg 13] to the barn, he caught up Twinkleheels' halter and snatched the four-quart measure off the top of a barrel.
"I won't stop to take any oats to-day," Johnnie said to himself. "I'll fool Twinkleheels. It will be a good joke on him when he puts his nose into the measure and finds it empty."
Johnnie Green hurried to the pasture. At his first whistle Twinkleheels pricked up his ears. He had come to think only of one thing when that whistle sounded in the pasture. ”

“ He even imitates his father in the way in which he stands in front of the fire, with his heels well apart. And he gives me chills up the spine by pulling short on one bridle-rein and making Buntie, his mustang-pony, pirouette just as the wicked-tempered Briquette sometimes pirouettes when his father is in the saddle. Yet Dinky-Dunk’s nerves are a bit ragged and there are times when he’s not always just with the boy, though it’s not for me to confute what the instinctive genius of childhood has already made reasonably clear to Dinkie’s discerning young eye. ”

“ These characters are very constant, and I have never seen two Dingoes differing more in form and colour than perhaps two foxes, a circumstance which to my mind indicates that the Dingo is not a breed of domestic dog gone wild—a very common belief—but undoubtedly a distinct canine species peculiar to Australia, a fact which is moreover amply proved by the occurrence of fossil Dingoes in the pleistocene formations of Australia.
The Dingo, as a rule, is shy and very cunning, and a European is seldom able to kill the animal in its lair. ”

“ Lady Allie is either dunderheaded or designing. She has calmly suggested that her rural phone-line be extended from Casa Grande to Alabama Ranch so that she can get in touch with Dinky-Dunk when she needs his help and guidance. Even as it is, he’s called on about five times a week, to run to the help of that she-remittance-man in corduroy and dog-skin gauntlets and leggings.
She seems thunderstruck to find that she can’t get the hired help she wants, at a moment’s notice. Dinky-Dunk says she’s sure to be imposed on, and that although she’s as green as grass, she’s really anxious to learn. ”

“ Don't you want to go to heaven, Diny, and sit in God's lap? What a great big lap he must have!"
A gust of wind lifted the frizzles on Dinah's forehead, but that was all.
"O dee, dee, dee! you don't hear nuffin 't all, Diny," said Flyaway—the only sensible remark she had made that day. It was of no use talking to Dinah; so she began to talk to herself.
"What you matter, Flywer Clifford?" [56] said she, scowling to keep her courage up. "What you matter?" ”

“ It’s always Dinkie minutes to Dink. When you read a book you’re only reading about what your Dinkie might have done or what your Dinkie is some day to write. When you picture the Prime Minister it’s merely your Dinkie grown big, laying down the law to a House of Parliament made up of other Dinkies, rows and rows of ’em. When the sun shines you’re wondering whether it’s warm enough for your Dinkie to walk in, and when the snow begins to melt you’re wondering whether 27 it’s soft enough for the beloved Dinkie to mold into snowballs. ”

“ The scientific world will never feel half the surprise anent our new discovery as that which fell upon the old shepherd when he found himself surrounded and made a prisoner. He had left his sheep in charge of the only companion he had in these regions—viz., his dog. Within a sheltered nook on one of the fairest and most luxuriant slopes of the mysterious Blue Mountains, Patch, the half-bred dingo, held watch and ward over his charge while his master wandered down the rugged side of the cliff in search of gold. ”

“ Then Dicky’s smile came back again, for he knew that the hours of his captivity were numbered; and he hummed, in time with the sentry’s tread:
“They’re hanging men and women now,
For lacking of the green.”
So, that night Dicky sat by the window of the room over his shop and his little saint sat close by, working at something silken and dainty. Dicky was thoughtful and grave. His red hair was in an unusual state of disorder. Pasa’s fingers often ached to smooth and arrange it, but Dicky would never allow it. ”

“ She has planted rows and rows of sweet peas all about Casa Grande and is starting to make a kitchen garden, which she's going to fence off and look after with her own hands. It will be twice the size of Olie's. But I do hope she doesn't ever grow into something mysterious to my Dinky-Dunk. This morning she said I ought to work in the garden, that the more I kept on my feet the better it would be for me later on.
As for Dinky-Dunk, the poor boy is working himself gaunt. Yet tired as he is, he tries to read a few pages of something worth while every night. Sometimes we take turns in reading. ”

“ She assumed that Dingan would leave Mitiahwe, for he would hear the voices of his people calling far away, even as the red man who went East into the great cities heard the prairies and the mountains and the rivers and his own people calling, and came back, and put off the clothes of civilisation, and donned his buckskins again, and sat in the Medicine Man's tent, and heard the spirits speak to him through the mist and smoke of the sacred fire. ”

“ Dinkie, in the meantime, was waking 297 every now and then and barking like a baby-coyote. I could have stood it, I suppose, if that old Bobs of ours hadn’t started howling outside, in long-drawn and dreary howls of unutterable woe. I remembered about a dog always howling that way when somebody was going to die in the house. And I concluded, with an icy heart, that it was the death-howl. I tried to count Dinkie’s pulse, but it was so rapid and I was so nervous that I lost track of the beats. So I decided to call Dinky-Dunk. ”

“ Dinky-Dunk rode over to-day when Peter was bolting some new wire stuts on the windmill tower and I was busy dry-picking two polygamous old roosters which Whinnie had beheaded for me. My husband attempted an offhand and happy-go-lucky air which, I very soon saw, was merely a mask to hide his embarrassment. He even flushed up to the ears when little Dinkie drew back for a moment or two, as any child might who didn’t recognize his own father, though he later solicitously tiptoed to the sleeping-porch where the Twins were having their nap, and remarked that they were growing prodigiously. ”

“ After a time, the moon arose; and, as it slowly rolled above the wilderness, it shed such a flood of light as to make it extremely dangerous to continue as heretofore. The tall forest trees towered upon both sides, throwing a wall of shadow far out into the stream. Dingle ran his canoe in under protection of these, upon the left bank, and dipped his oars more deeply and silently, commanding Jenkins not to utter a syllable.
Dingle paddled hour after hour, until toward midnight, he touched the bank, sprung out, and exchanged places with Jenkins, who took his turn at the paddle. ”

“ II Yet back, deep back in Jinny’s baby consciousness, lay another home altogether, a home richer in comfort and love; giving not on a tumbling common, but on a strange, flat waterside—with stately dream-ships in swelling white, and black barges, and little boats with ochre or orange sails, and a pervading savour of salt and mud; the real Blackwater Hall she felt dimly, though its name escaped her. ”

“ James Dingle put aside the branches, quietly as he could, and in no small trepidation, to see what was doing, before he got in:—and he did right, I think; for look before you leap, is a saying that has sense in it, especially when you're going to get into an eagle's nest. So far, all went well; but no sooner had he put his head through the leaves, than he saw a sight that struck him motionless!—Most men have been amazed some time or other; but there never was a man so amazed as James Dingle was. ”

“ So he rode Twinkleheels back and hitched him in his stall once more.
Old Ebenezer woke up as Twinkleheels pattered over the barn floor.
"What!" cried the old horse. "Back again so soon? Did you race with Bright and Broad?"
"The snow's too deep for a good race," Twinkleheels told him.
"Bright and Broad don't mind the snow much, do they?" Ebenezer asked.
"Oh, no!" Twinkleheels answered. "They're getting on slowly, up the road. They take their time, of course."
"Couldn't they beat you to the crossroads if you raced with them to-day?" ”

“ Dicky was riding with the mamour of the district, Fielding was a distance behind with Trousers and the Mudir. Dicky pulled up his donkey, got off and ran towards the horse, pale with fury; for he loved animals better than men, and had wasted his strength beating donkey-boys with the sticks they used on their victims. ”

“ And you know very well that a horse or a pony can't be spirited without plenty of oats."
Once more the bays muttered to each [Pg 96] other in a low tone. And at last they told Twinkleheels that he was greedy.
"You don't need any oats," they said. "You have more to eat than we do, all the time."
Twinkleheels was astonished.
"I don't know what you mean," he cried. "Johnnie Green feeds me only oats and hay; and that's no more than you have."
"We don't agree with you," the bays retorted. "You have meal. And you must eat a lot of it, too."
"Never!" Twinkleheels declared. "Why do you say that?" ”

“ He heard the cry of the hounds clearly now; they were within a couple of fields of the covert. Dinny Johnny drove his left spur into the little mare’s panting side, let go the crutch, took hold of her head in the way that is unmistakable, and faced her at the barricade. As he did so a countryman sprang up at his right hand and struck furiously at him with a heavy potato spade. The blow was aimed at Dinny Johnny, but the moment was miscalculated, and it fell on “Matchbox” instead. The sharp blade gashed her hind quarter, but with a spring like a frightened deer she rose to the jump. ”

“ Struthers and I have been busy making clothes, during the absence of Dinky-Dunk, who has been off duck-shooting for the last three days. He complained of being a bit tuckered out and having stood the gaff too long and needing a change. The outing will do him good. The children miss him, of course, but he’s promised to bring Dinkie home an Indian bow-and-arrow. I can see death and destruction hanging over the glassware of this household.... The weather has been stormy, and yesterday Whinnie and Struthers put up the stove in the bunk-house. ”

“ I don’t suppose my poor little Dinkie has yet awakened to the fact that his body is a worn river-bed down which must race the freshets of far-off racial instincts. But the thing disturbed me more than I’d be willing to admit. There are murky corridors in the house of life. They stand there, and they must be faced. There are rooms where the air must be kept stirring, corners into which the clear sanity of sunlight must be thrown. Dinkie, since he has stepped into his first experience in the keeping of rabbits, has been asking me a number of rather disconcerting questions. ”