“How glad I am I’ve got you!” said she. “If I didn’t have you, I shouldn’t have anybody. When I grow up, maybe I’ll be your mother, and give you good things.”
“You’re a little fool!” said Paul. “Stop your talk now, and go look for more bones. There’s no need of both of us sitting idle.”
“Oh, my feet ache so!” said Nora. But she minded Paul, and went searching about till he called her to go back to the city.
The walk back was so tiresome, that Nora almost dropped down from weariness. “O Paul!” said she, “my hands are too little; and they are sore, and my feet are too. I can’t hold on. Oh! it’s going, Paul! it’s going!”
Paul gave her a blow across the shoulders. “There!” said he. “Let that basket go down again, will you? Hurry up! Who wants everybody staring?”
Nora’s bare feet were bleeding, her arms ached, and her shoulders smarted where his hand came down. She was so little!—so very little! Poor thing! she did her best.
Upon reaching the yellow brick house, Paul and Nora walked directly in at the back-door, as they had been told. The wicked-looking man came to meet them, and took them into a room very low in the walls, and hung round with bird-cages. In these cages were canary-birds,—a great many canary-birds; also Java sparrows and mocking-birds. The room smelt strong of soap. In a door leading to the next apartment there were two squares of glass set: through this small window they could see a man’s face, tipped a little backwards, which the hand of another man was covering with soap-foam. By this they knew it must be a barber’s shop.
The wicked-looking man took Nora by the hand, and said, as he placed her in a chair, “All right, my little lady,—he, he, he! All right, my little beauty! I want to cut off your hair.”
“Oh, no! oh, no!” said Nora; and she covered her head with both hands.