Mrs. Hickox was possessed of a peculiar kind of shyness, and she shrank from meeting people more sophisticated than herself. She had become devotedly attached to Fairy, and really looked forward eagerly to the afternoons the child spent with her. She continued to be surprised at the doings of the Dorrances, but had never been to the Domain since her first call upon the family.
"Mr. Hickox tells me you've got a roof-garden," she said to Fairy one day, as they sat sociably in the milk-room. "Now for the land's sake do tell me what that is. Is it the thing that runs by electrics?"
"No," said Fairy, who never laughed at Mrs. Hickox's ignorance; "it's the Shooting Star that runs by electricity; the roof-garden doesn't run at all,—it just stays still."
"Well what is it, anyhow?"
"Why, the roof-garden is just a garden on the roof."
"A garden on a roof! well I am surprised! What do you raise in the garden? peas and beans? It must be an awful trouble to get the dirt up there, and to get the water up there to water things with. As for getting the potatoes and pumpkins down, I suppose you can just throw them down,—though I must say I should think it would spoil the pumpkins."
"Oh, we don't raise vegetables in the roof-garden, Mrs. Hickox," said Fairy, laughing in spite of herself.
"Well, what do you raise?"
"Why we don't raise anything; we just stay there."
"Humph! I can't see any garden about that. But I did want to know what the thing was like. 'Cause I cut out a clipping yesterday,—Hickory, he got his shoes home from the cobbler's, and they was wrapped in a piece of a New York newspaper; my, but I had a good time! I cut so many clippings out of that newspaper, that what's left would do for a picture frame. The worst of it was, so many clippings backed up against others, and they wasn't the same length. People ought to be more careful how they print their newspapers. Well, as I was saying, I cut out a piece about a roof-garden, but I guess you're right about their not raisin' things in it. My land! I couldn't get head or tail to the whole yarn. So that's why I wanted to ask you just what a roof-garden is. But I ain't found out much."