“To read and to sing and to draw,” said Carin.
“Very well,” said Mr. Carson, laughingly and yet with meaning. “And I’ll send some one along to help with such trifles as arithmetic, geography, grammar, et cetera, and incidentally I’ll foot the bills. Is it a bargain?”
“It’s a bargain,” said they in chorus.
CHAPTER XIV
HI’S HOUN’ DAWG
It was Saturday and Hi Kitchell and Jim McBirney, having done their chores, met by appointment at the spring under the tulip trees where Azalea intended to build her bungalow when she became very rich.
It was a lovely spot and they threw themselves down in perfect content, their dogs near at hand, and looked off at what Hi called a “purty worl’.”
“It jes’ seems like everything worth speakin’ about hed come my way,” sighed Hi contently. “You-all remember what a pore little forsaken cuss I was, Jim, when me and ’Zalie came draggin’ along with that thar show of Sisson’s a year back an’ more?”
“’Taint more’n a year, Hi.”
“Seems like a century. An’ no sooner hed we laid eyes on your pa and ma than things began to go right. An’ now look at us. ’Zalie’s like your sister and gettin’ a tip-top education, and is off ridin’ the country over with the Carsons; and me and ma hev a home anybody would be proud to own, and that thar Industries business is lookin’ up more’n more every livelong day. Why we’re so happy we’re in danger of bustin’. I asked ma t’other day if she didn’t feel most like bustin’, and she said she did.”
“It’s a good place to live here-abouts,” agreed Jim. “Pleasant things have a way of happenin’ ’round here. If it wa’n’t for that dod-gasted hard luck of Annie Laurie’s, I’d think this was where the nicest folks in creation lived. But some one done her a mean, low-down trick.”