Purple Springs | Page 4

her ear--unconsciously she felt the antagonism. "That's absurd," she
said, with sudden animation; "why, these people are nobody, the
mother used to wash for me a few years ago. They are the very
commonest sort--the father was only a section man. The doctor enjoys
her cute speeches, that's all, but there's absolutely nothing in it--he as
much as told me so."
Pearl hung up the receiver with a click, and, pressing her lips together,
walked over to the window with two crimson spots burning like danger
signals on her cheeks. When Pearl's soul was burdened she always
wanted to get outside, where the sky and the wind and the big blue
distance would help her to think. But the day was too cold for that, so
instinctively she walked to the window, where the short afternoon sun
was making a pale glow on the heavy clouds.
Old Nap came from his place behind the table and shoved his cold nose
into her hand, with a gentle wagging of his tail, reminding her that all
was not lost while she still had him.
Dropping down on her knees beside him, Pearl buried her face in his
glistening white collar, and for one perilous moment was threatened
with tears. But pride, which has so often come to our rescue just in time,
stepped into her quivering young heart, she stood up and shook her
head like an angry young heifer.
"'Common,' are they?" she said, with eyes that darted fire; "not half
common enough--decent people that do their work and mind their own
business,--helpin' a friend in need and hurtin' no wan--it would be a
better world if people like them were commoner! 'And the mother
washed for ye, did she, you dirty trollop? Well, it was a God's mercy
that some one washed for you, and it was good clane washin' she did,
I'll bet--and blamed little she got for it, too, while you lay in your bed
with your dandruffy hair in a greasy boudoir cap, and had her climb the
stairs with your breakfast. And you'd fault her for washin' for you--and
cleanin' your house--you'd fault her for it! I know the kind of ye--you'd
rather powder ye'r neck than wash it, any day!"

No one would recognize the young Normalite who two weeks before
had taken the highest marks in English, and had read her essay at the
closing exercises, and afterwards had it printed, at the editor's request,
in the _Evening Echo_, for Pearl's fierce anger had brought her back
again to the language of her childhood.
"And he as much as told you, did he?" she whispered, turning around to
glare in stormy wrath at the unoffending telephone--"he as much as told
you there was nothing in it?"
Pearl puckered her lips and shut one eye in a mighty mental effort to
imagine what he would say, but in trying to hear his words she could
only see his glowing face, the rumpled hair she loved so well, and then
her voice came back like a perfect phonograph record, that strong,
mellow, big voice which had always set her heart tingling and drove
away every fear. She couldn't make him say anything else but the old
sweet words that had lived with her for the last three years.
The storm faded from her eyes in a moment, and in the rush of joy that
broke over her, she threw herself down beside old Nap and kissed the
shiny top of his smooth black head. Then going over to the telephone,
she shook her fist at it:
"Did my mother wash for you, ma'am? She did--and you never had
better washin' done! Are we common people?--we are, and we're not
ashamed. We're doin' fine, thank you--all the children are at school but
me, and I've gone thro' the public school and Normal too. The crops are
good--we have thirty head of cattle and six horses, sound in wind and
limb. Some day we'll have a fine new house, and we'll live all over it
too. John Watson did work on the section, and they'd be fine and glad
to get him back. He owes no man a dollar, and bears no man a grudge. I
wouldn't change him for the Governor-General for me dad--and now
listen--I'm tellin' ye something, I'm goin' to marry the doctor--if he
wants me--and if you don't like it there's a place you can go to. I'll not
be namin' it in the presence of Nap here, for he's a good Christian."
"And you, sir,"--she addressed the telephone again,--"I thank you for
your kind words regarding brains and looks. I hope it is a true word you

speak, for I may need both before I'm done."

The home-coming of the cows at eventime has