y," Pearl began after a pause, "who does the cow over there with the
horns bent down look like? Someone we both know, only the cow looks
pleasanter."
"My word!" the Englishman exclaimed, "you're a rum one."
Pearl looked disappointed.
"Animals often look like people," she said. "We have two cows at home,
one looks like Mrs. White, so good and gentle, wouldn't say boo to a
goose; the other one looks just like Fred Miller. He works in the mill,
and his hair goes in a roll on the top; his mother did it that way with
a hair-pin too long, I guess, and now it won't go any other way, and I
know an animal that looks like you; he's a dandy, too, you bet. It is
White's dog, and he can jump the fence easy as anything."
"Oh, give over, give over!" the Englishman said stiffly.
Pearl laughed delightedly.
"It's lots of fun guessing who people are like," she said. "I'm awful
smart at it and so is Mary, four years younger'n me. Once we could not
guess who Mrs. Francis was like, and Mary guessed it. Mrs. Francis
looks like prayer--big bug eyes lookin' away into nothin', but hopin'
it's all for the best. Do you pray?"
"I am a rector's son," he answered.
"Oh, I know, minister's son, isn't that lovely? I bet you know prayers
and prayers. But it isn't fair to pray in a race is it? When Jimmy
Moore and my brother Jimmy ran under twelve, Jimmie Moore prayed, and
some say got his father to pray, too; he's the Methodist minister, you
know, and, of course, he won it; but our Jimmy could ha' beat him easy
in a fair race, and no favours; but he's an awful snoopie kid and prays
about everything. Do you sing?"
"I do--a little," the Englishman said modestly.
"Oh, my, I am glad," Pearl cried rapturously. "When I was two years old
I could sing 'Hush my babe lie,' all through--I love singin'--I can
sing a little, too, but I don't care much for my own. Have they got an
organ here?"
"I don't know," he answered, "I've only been in the kitchen."
"Say, I'd like to see a melodeon. Just the very name of it makes me
think of lovely sounds, religious sounds, mountin' higher and higher
and swellin' out grander and grander, rollin' right into the great
white throne, and shakin' the streets of gold. Do you know the 'Holy
City,'" she asked after a pause.
The Englishman began to hum it in a rich tenor.
"That's it, you bet," she cried delightedly. "Just think of you coming
all the way across the ocean and knowing that just the same as we d
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