"I am one of the neighbours," he said. "I live over there"--pointing to a little car-roofed shanty farther up the creek. "Did I frighten you? I am sorry if I did, but you see I like the sentiment of your song so much I could not help telling you. You need not think it strange if you find me milking one of the cows occasionally. You see, I believe in dealing directly with the manufacturer and thus save the middleman"s profit, and so I just take what milk I need from So-Bossie over there."
"Does she know?" Pearl asked, nodding toward the house.
"Who? So-Bossie?"
"No, Mrs. Motherwell."
"Well, no," he answered slowly. "You haven"t heard of her having a fit, have you?"
"No," Pearl answered wonderingly.
"Then we"re safe in saying that the secret has been kept from her."
"Does it hurt her, though?" Pearl asked.
"It would, very much, if she knew it," the young man replied gravely.
"Oh, I mean the cow," Pearl said hastily.
"It doesn"t hurt the cow a bit. What does she care who gets the milk?
When did you come?"
"To-night," Pearl said. "I must hurry. She"ll have a rod in steep for me if I"m late. My name"s Pearl Watson. What"s yours?"
"Jim Russell," he said. "I know your brother Teddy."
Pearl was speeding down the hill. She shouted back:
"I know who you are now. Good-bye!" Pearl ran to catch up to the cows, for the sun was throwing long shadows over the pasture, and the plaintive lowing of the hungry calves came faintly to her ears.
A blond young man stood at the bars with four milk pails.
He raised his hat when he spoke to Pearl.
"Madam says you are to help me to milk, but I a.s.sure you it is quite unnecessary. Really, I would much prefer that you shouldn"t."
"Why?" Pearl asked in wonder.
"Oh, by Jove! You see it is not a woman"s place to work outside like this, don"t you know."
"That"s because ye"r English," Pearl said, a sudden light breaking in on her. "Ma says when ye git a nice Englishman there"s nothing nicer, and pa knowed one once that was so polite he used to say "Haw Buck" to the ox and then he"d say, "Oh, I beg yer pardon, I mean gee." It wasn"t you, was it?"
"No," he said smiling, "I have never driven oxen, but I have done a great many ridiculous things I am sure."
"So have I," Pearl said confidentially, as she sat down on a little three-legged stool to milk So-Bossie. "You know them fluffy white things all made of lace and truck like that, that is hung over the beds in rich people"s houses, over the pillows, I mean?"
"Pillow-shams?" he asked.
"Yes, that"s them! Well, when I stayed with Camilla one night at Mrs.
Francis"s didn"t I think they were things to pull down to keep the flies off ye"r face. Say, you should have heard Camilla laugh, and ma saw a girl at a picnic once who drank lemonade through her veil, and she et a banana, skin and all."
Pearl laughed heartily, but the Englishman only smiled faintly.
Canadian ways were growing stranger all the time.
"Say," 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 do. I used to listen at the keyhole when Mrs. Francis had company, and I was there helping Camilla. Dr. Clay sang that lots of times."
The Englishman had not sung since he had left his father"s house. He began to sing now, in a sweet, full voice, resonant on the quiet evening air, the cows staring idly at him. The old dog came down to the bars with his bristles up, expecting trouble.
Old Sam and his son Tom coming in from work stopped to listen to these strange sounds.
"Confound them English!" old Sam said. "Ye"d think I was payin" him to do that, and it harvest-time, too!"
When Dr. Clay, with Danny Watson gravely perched beside him, drove along the river road after saying good-bye to Pearl, they met Miss Barner, who had been digging ferns for Mrs. McGuire down on the river flat.
The doctor drew in his horse.
"Miss Barner," he said, lifting his hat, "if Daniel Mulcahey Watson and I should ask you to come for a drive with us, I wonder what you would say?"
Miss Barner considered for a moment and then said, smiling: