Sowing Seeds in Danny | Page 3

and listened attentively to Sam's reasoning.
From the little window of the caboose came the discordant wail of a
very young infant, and old Sam felt his claims growing more and more
shadowy.
John took the pipe from his mouth and spat once at the woodpile. Then,
jerking his thumb toward the little window, he said briefly:
"Twins. Last night."
Sam Motherwell mounted his trucks and drove away. He knew when
he was beaten.
The house had received additions on every side, until it seemed to
threaten to run over the edge of the lot, and looked like a section of a
wrecked freight train, with its yellow refrigerator car.
The snow had drifted up to the windows, and entirely over the little
lean-to that had been erected at the time that little Danny had added his
feeble wail to the general family chorus.
But the smoke curled bravely up from the chimney into the frosty air,
and a snug pile of wood by the "cheek of the dure" gave evidence of
John's industry, notwithstanding his dislike of the world's best
literature.
Inside the floor was swept and the stove was clean, and an air of
comfort was over all, in spite of the evidence of poverty. A great
variety of calendars hung on the wall. Every store in town it seems had
sent one this year, last year and the year before. A large poster of the

Winnipeg Industrial Exhibition hung in the parlour, and a
Massey-Harris self-binder, in full swing, propelled by three maroon
horses, swept through a waving field of golden grain, driven by an
adipose individual in blue shirt and grass-green overalls. An enlarged
picture of John himself glared grimly from a very heavy frame, on the
opposite wall, the grimness of it somewhat relieved by the row of
Sunday-school "big cards" that were stuck in around the frame.
On the afternoon that Mrs. Watson had received the uplifting talk on
motherhood, and Mrs. Francis had entered it in the little red book,
Pearlie Watson, aged twelve, was keeping the house, as she did six
days in the week. The day was too cold for even Jimmy to be out, and
so all except the three eldest boys were in the kitchen variously
engaged. Danny under promise of a story was in the high chair
submitting to a thorough going over with soap and water. Patsey,
looking up from his self-appointed task of brushing the legs of the
stove with the hair-brush, loudly demanded that the story should begin
at once.
"Story, is it?" cried Pearlie in her wrath, as she took the hair-brush from
Patsey. "What time have I to be thinkin' of stories and you that full of
badness. My heart is bruck wid ye."
"I'll be good now," Patsey said, penitently, sitting on the wood-box, and
tenderly feeling his skinned nose. "I got hurt to-day, mind that,
Pearlie."
"So ye did, poor bye," said Pearlie, her wrath all gone, "and what will I
tell yez about, my beauties?"
"The pink lady where Jimmy brings the milk," said Patsey promptly.
"But it's me that's gettin' combed," wailed Danny. "I should say what
ye'r to tell, Pearlie."
"True for ye," said Pearlie, "Howld ye'r tongue, Patsey. What will I tell
about, honey?"

"What Patsey said'll do" said Danny with an injured air, "and don't
forget the chockalut drops she had the day ma was there and say she
sent three o' them to me, and you can have one o' them, Pearlie."
"And don't forget the big plate o' potatoes and gravy and mate she gave
the dog, and the cake she threw in the fire to get red of it," said Mary.
who was knitting a sock for Teddy.
"No, don't tell that," said Jimmy, "it always makes wee Bugsey cry."
"Well," began Pearlie, as she had done many times before. "Once upon
a time not very long ago, there lived a lovely pink lady in a big house
painted red, with windies in ivery side of it, and a bell on the front dure,
and a velvet carpet on the stair and--"
"What's a stair?' asked Bugsey.
"It's a lot of boxes piled up higher and higher, and nailed down tight so
that ye can walk on them, and when ye get away up high, there is
another house right farninst ye--well anyway, there was a lovely pianny
in the parlow, and flowers in the windies, and two yalla burds that sing
as if their hearts wud break, and the windies had a border of coloured
glass all around them, and long white curtings full of holes, but they
like them all the better o' that, for it shows they are owld and must ha'
been good to ha' stood it so long. Well. annyway.