“Sure, tis a foine little pig OI’m growing now,” Granny said.

“And as for sleeping—” Maida stopped as if there were no words
anywhere to describe her condition.

Granny finished it for her. “The choild sleeps like a top.”

Billy Potter came at least every day and sometimes oftener. Every
child in Primrose Court knew him by the end of the first week and
every child loved him by the end of the second. And they all called
him Billy. He would not let them call him Mr. Potter or even Uncle
Billy because, he said, he was a child when he was with them and he
wanted to be treated like a child. He played all their games with a
skill that they thought no mere grown-up could possess. Like Rosie,
he seemed to be bubbling over with life and spirits. He was always
running, leaping, jumping, climbing, turning cartwheels and
somersaults, vaulting fences and “chinning” himself unexpectedly
whenever he came to a doorway.

“Oh, Masther Billy, ’tis the choild that you are!” Granny would say,
twinkling.

“Yes, ma’am,” Billy would answer.

At the end of the first fortnight, the neighborhood had accepted
Granny and Maida as the mother-in-law and daughter of a “traveling
man.” From the beginning Granny had seemed one of them, but Maida
was a puzzle. The children could not understand how a little girl
could be grown-up and babyish at the same time. And if you stop to
think it over, perhaps you can understand how they felt.