"
He half turned his back, was silent for a moment, and then said coldly,
but in a trembling voice,
"Dinna distress yersel'. We canna help it."
"But what'll ye do, Curly?" asked Annie in a tone full of compassionate
loving-kindness, and with her hand still on his arm. "It's sair to
bide."
"Gude kens that.???-I maun jist warstle throu' 't like mony anither. I'll
awa' back to the pig-skin saiddle I was workin' at," said Curly, with a
smile at the bitterness of his fate.
"It's no that I dinna like ye, Curly. Ye ken that. I wad do anything
for ye that I cud do. Ye hae been a gude frien' to me."
And here Annie burst out crying.
"Dinna greit. The Lord preserve's! dinna greit. I winna say anither
word aboot it. What's Curly that sic a ane as you sud greit for him?
Faith! it's nearhan' as guid as gin ye lo'ed me. I'm as prood's a
turkey-cock," averred Curly in a voice ready to break with emotion of a
very different sort from pride.
"It's a sair thing that things winna gang richt!" said Annie at last,
after many vain attempts to stop the fountain by drying the stream of
her tears.???-I believe they were the first words of complaint upon
things in general that she ever uttered.
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