lace, and a train as long as from me to you, and she sez
to Jimmy, sez she, 'Have you any sisters or brothers at
home,' and Jim speaks up real proud-like, 'Just nine,'
he sez, and sez she, swate as you please, 'Oh, that's
lovely! Are they all as purty as you?' she sez, and Jimmy
sez, 'Purtier if anything,' and she sez, 'I'll be steppin'
over to-day to see yer ma,' and Jim ran home and told
them all, and they all got brushed and combed and actin'
good, and in she comes, laving her carriage at the dure,
and her in a long pink velvet cape draggin' behind her
on the flure, and wide white fer all around it, her silk
skirts creakin' like a bag of cabbage and the eyes of
her just dancin' out of her head, and she says, 'These
are fine purty childer ye have here, Mrs. Watson. This
is a rale purty girl, this oldest one. What's her name?'
and ma ups and tells her it is Rebecca Jane Pearl, named
for her two grandmothers, and Pearl just for short. She
says, 'I'll be for taking you home wid me, Pearlie, to
play the pianny for me,' and then she asks all around
what the children's names is, and then she brings out a
big box, from under her cape, all tied wid store string,
and she planks it on the table and tearin' off the string,
she sez, 'Now, Pearlie, it's ladies first, tibby sure.
What would you like to see in here?' And I says up quick--
'A long coat wid fer on it, and a handkerchief smellin'
strong of satchel powder,' and she whipped them out of
the box and threw them on my knee, and a new pair of red
mitts too. And then she says, 'Mary, acushla, it's your
turn now.' And Mary says, 'A doll with a real head on
it,' and there it was as big as Danny, all dressed in