"Aw—what are yer givin' us?" returned Bobby, and, with an unmistakably superior air, he faced again toward the scene before them. "I can see the whole darned thing—I can."
The Interpreter laughed. "And that," he said, "is exactly what every one says, Bobby. But, after all, they don't see the whole darned thing—they only think they do."
"Huh," retorted the boy, scornfully, "I guess I can see the Mill, can't I?—over there by the river—with the smoke a-rollin' out of her chimneys? Listen, I can hear her, too."
Faintly, on a passing breath of air, came the heavy droning, moaning voice of the Mill.
"Yes," agreed the Interpreter, with an odd note in his deep, kindly voice, "I can nearly always hear it. I was sure you would see the Mill."
"An' look-ee, look-ee," shouted the boy, forgetting, in his quick excitement, to maintain this superior air, "look-ee, Mag! Come here, quick." With energetic gestures he beckoned his sister to his side. "Look-ee, right over there by that bunch of dust, see? It's our house—where we live. That there's Tony's old place on the corner. An' there's the lot where us kids plays ball. Gee, yer could almost see mom if she'd only come outside to talk to Missus Grafton er somethin'!"
From his wheel chair the Interpreter watched the children at the porch railing. "Of course you would see your home," he said, gravely. "The Mill first, and then the place where you live. Nearly every one sees those things first. Now tell what else you see."
"I see, I see—" The boy hesitated. There was so much to be seen from the Interpreter's balcony porch.
The little girl's thin voice piped up with shrill eagerness, "Look at the pretty yeller fields an' the green trees away over there across the river, Bobby. Gee, but wouldn't yer just love to be over there an'—an'—roll 'round in the grass, an' pick flowers, an' everything?"
"Huh," retorted Bobby. "Look-ee, that there's McIver's factory up the river there. It's 'most as big as the Mill. An' see all the stores an' barber shops an' things downtown—an' look-ee, there's the courthouse where the jail is an'—"