proudly and
laid it down beside her in the chimney-corner.

"The gerd'ner says it'll bate th' brains out on aany geranium in the
show!" I said.

"Throth it will that, dear," she said, "but sure ye couldn't take a
prize fur it!"

"Why?" I growled.

"Ah, honey, shure everybody would know that ye didn't grow it--forby
they know that th' smoke in here would kill it in a few days."

I sulked and protested.

"That's a nice way t' throw cowld wather on th' chile," Jamie said. "Why
don't ye let 'im go on an' take his chances at the show?"

A pained look overspread her features. It was as if he had struck her
with his fist. Her eyes filled with tears and she said huskily:

"The whole world's a show, Jamie, an' this is the only place the wee
fella has to rehearse in."

I sat down beside her and laid my head in her lap. She stroked it in
silence for a minute or two. I couldn't quite see, however, how I could
miss that show! She saw that after all I was determined to enter the
lists. She offered to put a card on it for me so that they would know
the name of the owner. This is what she wrote on the card:

"This plant is lent for decorative purposes."

That night there was an unusual atmosphere in her corner. She had a
newly tallied cap on her head and her little Sunday shawl over her
shoulders. Her candle was burning and the hearthstones had an extra coat
of whitewash. She drew me up close beside her and told me a story.

"Once, a long, long time ago, God, feelin' tired, went to sleep an' had
a nice wee nap on His throne. His head was in His han's an' a wee white
cloud came down an' covered him up. Purty soon He wakes up an' says He:

"'Where's Michael?'

"'Here I am, Father!' said Michael.

"'Michael, me boy,' says God, 'I want a chariot and a charioteer!'

"'Right ye are!' says he. Up comes the purtiest chariot in the city of
Heaven an' finest charioteer.

"'Me boy,' says God, 'take a million tons ov th' choicest seeds of th'
flowers of Heaven an' take a trip around th' world wi' them. Scatther
them,' says He, 'be th' roadsides an' th' wild places of th' earth where
my poor live.'

"'Aye,' says the charioteer, 'that's jist like ye, Father. It's th'
purtiest job of m' afther-life an' I'll do it finely.'

"'It's jist come t' Me in a dream,' says th' Father, 'that th' rich have
all the flowers down there and th' poor haave nown at all. If a million
tons isn't enough take a billion tons!'"

At this point I go