land! she might be a hundred to hear her talk! She kept me
jumpin' tryin' to answer her! Of all the queer children I ever
come across she's the queerest. She ain't no beauty--her face is
all eyes; but if she ever grows up to them eyes an' fills out a
little she'll make folks stare. Land, mother! I wish 't you could
'a' heard her talk."
"I don't see what she had to talk about, a child like that, to a
stranger," replied Mrs. Cobb.
"Stranger or no stranger, 't would n't make no difference to her.
She'd talk to a pump or a grindstone; she'd talk to herself
ruther 'n keep still."
"What did she talk about?
"Blamed if I can repeat any of it. She kept me so surprised I
didn't have my wits about me. She had a little pink sunshade--it
kind o' looked like a doll's umberella, 'n' she clung to it like
a burr to a woolen stockin'. I advised her to open it up--the sun
was so hot; but she said no, 't would fade, an' she tucked it
under her dress. 'It's the dearest thing in life to me,' says
she, 'but it's a dreadful care.' Them's the very words, an' it's
all the words I remember. 'It's the dearest thing in life to me,
but it's an awful care!'"--here Mr.Cobb laughed aloud as he
tipped his chair back against the side of the house. "There was
another thing, but I can't get it right exactly. She was talkin'
'bout the circus parade an' the snake charmer in a gold chariot,
an' says she, 'She was so beautiful beyond compare, Mr. Cobb,
that it made you have lumps in your throat to look at her.'
She'll be comin' over to see you, mother, an' you can size her up
for yourself, I don' know how she'll git on with Mirandy Sawyer--
poor little soul!"
This doubt was more or less openly expressed in Riverboro, which,