“Faith, me little lady, ye might be one o’ them Injun chiefseses’ daughters herself, so ye might! An’, if we meet up with any, they’ll go easy like, forby they’d be botherin’ their own kin.”
“I guess they’d soon find out the difference. My hair is yellow and an Indian’s is always dark. Dennis, did you know I could talk a little of their language?”
“Sure, an’ I didn’t but I believe it entire. Me purty dear, you’re that clever—”
“That’s not ‘clever.’ Clever means to be very wise, like my father. But learning to talk different ways, why, that’s just fun. I used to show our visiting Indians something and they would tell me the name of it; then they would ask me for it, in real earnest, maybe, and I would soon know what they meant. Dennis, if I live to be a woman I mean to know about every language there is in the whole world, and about every single flower, too. Or if—not every—then as many as I can. I do, really.”
He regarded her with all-believing eyes, yet there crept a touch of commiseration into his honest face.
“Hear to the purty girleen! But ’tis a fine headache you’ll be havin’ all your life, Miss Carlota. Och! You will that.”
“Knowing things doesn’t make your head ache, Dennis Fogarty. How can you think so?”
“Oh! I know, I know. Once, Miss Carlota, away back in Connemara, I was sent to the priest to be taught. Arrah musha, the day!” He bitterly groaned, remembering it.
“Well, what of it? Come on, please. Don’t let your Cork drag along so or we shall never be there. That’s better. I don’t mean to hurry you, but I’m so glad to be moving, and I do think the broncho travels more and more slowly all the time. I’m afraid that when you conquered him you took all the heart out of him. But, what about you and the priest?”
“Sure, it was mighty little. ’Twas only one day betwixt us. I goes in the morning, goes I, along with more little gossoons; an’ there sits his riverence, all easy like, in his chair. So we pays him our duty as we should, ye understand, an’ he stands us all up in a row. Then he whips out a card with them things they call letters printed out on’t, big an’ bold. I was the top o’ the row; an’: ‘Dennis Fogarty,’ says he, ‘what’s that thing?’ says he.