Joe turned and looked at her, and a slow, jeering smile gathered on his
face.
'Monkey nuts!' he replied, in a tone mocking her call.
She turned white--dead white. The men thought she would fall. Albert
began yelling to the porters up the line to come and help with the load.
He could yell like any non-commissioned officer upon occasion.
Some way or other the wagon was unloaded, the girl was gone. Joe and his
corporal looked at one another and smiled slowly. But they had a weight
on their minds, they were afraid.
They were reassured, however, when they found that Miss Stokes came no
more with the hay. As far as they were concerned, she had vanished into
oblivion. And Joe felt more relieved even than he had felt when he heard
the firing cease, after the news had come that the armistice was signed.
WINTRY PEACOCK
There was thin, crisp snow on the ground, the sky was blue, the wind very
cold, the air clear. Farmers were just turning out the cows for an hour
or so in the midday, and the smell of cow-sheds was unendurable as I
entered Tible. I noticed the ash-twigs up in the sky were pale and
luminous, passing into the blue. And then I saw the peacocks. There they
were in the road before me, three of them, and tailless, brown, speckled
birds, with dark-blue necks and ragged crests. They stepped archly over
the filigree snow, and their bodies moved with slow motion, like small,
light, flat-bottomed boats.
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