I could feel my mood and words take their tone from him,
though he outwardly heard me through with no show of feeling; and when I
finished, I knew we were friends. I presently ventured to praise the
specimen of his skill nearest at hand; a wild turkey listening alarmedly
as if it would the next instant utter that ringing "quit!" which makes
each separate drop of a hunter's blood tingle. But with an odd languor in
his gravity, he replied:
"Naw, dass not well make; lill' bit worse, bad enough to put in front
window. I take you inside; come."
II
We passed through into a private workroom immediately behind the shop. His
wife sat there sewing; a broad, motherly woman of forty-five, fat,
tranquil, kind, with an old eye, a young voice, and a face that had got
its general flabbiness through much paddling and gnawing from other
women's teething babes. She sat still, unintroduced, but welcomed me with
a smile.
I was saying to her husband that a hummingbird was a very small thing to
ask him to stuff. But he stopped me with his lifted palm.
"My fran', a hummingbird has de pas-sione'--de ecstacie! One drop of blood
wid the pas-sione in it"--He waved his hand with a jerk of the thumb in
disdain of spoken words, and it was I who added,
"Is bigger than the sun?"
"Hah!" was all he uttered in approval, turning as if to go to work.
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