When things are going well
(which isn't often) he is gloomy and apprehensive of an early change
for the worse. When the worst comes he positively beams over it.
Difficult to say whether he enjoys himself more in an over-wet season,
or in one of drought. His special and ever-recurring joy is the
discovery of some insect breaking out in a fresh place. He is always
on the look-out for the Mottled Amber Moth, or the Frit-fly, or
the Currant Scale, or the Apple-bark Beetle, or the Mustard
Beetle,--"Black Jack," as he familiarly calls him. To see, as is
not unfrequent, a promising apple-tree, cherry-tree, or damson-tree,
fading under the attack of the caterpillars of the Winter Moth, makes
ARPACHSHAD a new man. His back unbends, his wrinkles smooth out, the
gleam of faded youth reillumines his countenance, and his eyes melt in
softer glance.
"The flies hev got at them honions," he said, on this Spring
afternoon. "I thought they would, and I reckon they're done for. Ever
seen a honion-fly, Sir? A nice, lively, busy-looking thing; pretty
reddish-grey coat, with a whitish face, and pale grey wings.
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