“He is looking at me, I declare.”
“You can see the wicked pupil of his eye at this distance,” I insinuated.
“Well,” she replied, determined to take this omen unto herself. “I saw him first.”
“ ‘One for sorrow, two for joy,
Three for a letter, four for a boy.
Five for silver, six for gold,
And seven for a secret never told.’
—You may bet he’s only a messenger in advance. There’ll be three more shortly, and you’ll have your four,” said I, comforting.
“Do you know,” she said, “it is very funny, but whenever I’ve particularly noticed one crow, I’ve had some sorrow or other.”
“And when you notice four?” I asked.
“You should have heard old Mrs. Wagstaffe,” was her reply. “She declares an old crow croaked in their apple tree every day for a week before Jerry got drowned.”
“Great sorrow for her,” I remarked.
“Oh, but she wept abundantly. I felt like weeping too, but somehow I laughed. She hoped he had gone to heaven—but—I’m sick of that word ‘but’—it is always tangling one’s thoughts.”
“But, Jerry!” I insisted.
“Oh, she lifted up her forehead, and the tears dripped off her nose. He must have been an old nuisance, Syb. I can’t understand why women marry such men. I felt downright glad to think of the drunken old wretch toppling into the canal out of the way.”
