sly, as he crowded to
get another look. "If there's anything goin', you get it."

"Now clear out, all you boys, and let Pearl get her breakfast," said
Mary. "I haven't had a chance to speak to her yet, and I want to know
how the girls are wearing their hair and how long a girl of sixteen
should wear her skirts, and lots of things."

The boys departed to make whistles with the new knives, Pearl offering
a prize for the shrillest and fartherest reaching; to be tried at
twelve o'clock noon, and silence settled once more on the kitchen.

"It's sort of too bad you came home on Saturday, Pearl," said her
mother anxiously, as she toasted a slice of bread over the
glowing wood coals. "The boys will pester you to death today and
tomorrow--though of course I know you have no other time."

"I like to be pestered, ma," said Pearl, as she began on a generous
helping of bacon and eggs. "Home is the best place, ma, and I never
knew just how good it was to have home and folks of my own, as the day
I went to school and found no children there. Isn't it queer, ma,
how hard people can be on each other. It makes me afraid God must be
disappointed lots of times, and feel like pulling down another flood
and getting away to a fresh start again.

"But I am not going to talk about anything--until I get back to
feeling the way I did when I went away. I want to see the hens and
the cows and the new pigs. I want to get out in the honest, freckly
sunshine. Do the potatoes need hoeing, ma? All right, pa and I will
go at them. I like people, and all that, but I have to mix in lots of
blue sky and plants, and a few good, honest horses, cows, dogs and
cats--who have no underlying motives and are never suspicious or
jealous, and have no regrets over anything they've done."

"But don't you like the city, Pearl?" Mary asked. "Don't you wish we
all lived there? I do, you bet."

"I am glad my people live right here, Mary, out in the open, where
there's room to breathe and time to think. O, I like the city, with
its street cars weaving the streets together like shuttles; I love
their flashing blue and red and green lights, as they slide past the
streets, clanging their bells, and with faces looking out of the
windows, and every one of the people knowing where they are going. I
like the crowds that surge along the streets at night, and the good
times they are having. I like it--for a visit. It's a great place to
go to--if you have your own folks with