“No; because you might—I might get no-fairing, and then Sheelah’d come out and say I was bad. Le’s sit here and talk; it’s safer to. What’s a lark, Daisy? I was going to ask Sheelah.”
“A—lark? Why, it’s a bird, of course!”
“I don’t mean the bird kind, but the kind you have when your mother puts you—when something splendid happens. That kind, I mean.”
Daisy pondered. Her acquaintance with larks was limited, unless it meant—
“Do you mean a good time?” she asked. “We have larks over to my house when we go to bed—”
“That’s it! That’s the kind!” shouted delighted Murray. “I’m going to have one when I go to bed. Do you have reg’lar ones, Daisy?” with a secret little hope that she didn’t. “I’m going to have a reg’lar one.”
“Huh!—chase all ’round the room an’ turn somersaults an’ be highway robberers? An’ take the hair-pins out o’ your mother’s hair an’ hide in it—what?”
Murray gasped a little at the picture of that kind of a lark. It was difficult to imagine himself chasing ’round the room or being a highwayman; and as for somersaults—he glanced uneasily over his shoulder, as if Sheelah might be looking and read “somersaults” through the back of his head. For once he had almost turned one and Sheelah had found him in the middle of it and said pointed things. In Sheelah’s code of etiquette there were no somersaults in the “s” column.
“It’s a reg’lar lark to hide in your mother’s hair,” was going on the girl child’s voice. “Yes, sir, that’s the reg’larest kind!”
Murray gasped again, harder. For that kind took away his breath altogether and made him feel a little dizzy, as if he were—were doing it now—hiding in his mother’s hair! It was soft, beautiful, gold-colored hair, and there was a great deal of it—oh, plenty to hide in! He shut his eyes and felt it all about him and soft against his face, and smelled the faint fragrance of it. The dizziness was sweet.