“Father says he heard you sing last night,” said Martha when they were left alone. “Will you sing to me?”
“I am so tired of singing!” pleaded Hannah. “I don’t know many songs, and I sing them so very often! Won’t that bird do as well? Let me get down the cage, may I?”
“Yes, do, and we will give him some water, poor fellow! He is my bird and I feed him every day. Somebody that could not afford to keep him sold him to father, and father gave him to me. Had you ever a bird?”
“No, but I had a monkey once. When we went away, father got a monkey, and I used to lead him about with a string; but I was glad when we had done with him, he was so mischievous. Look here how he tore my arm one day, when somebody had put him in a passion with giving him empty nutshells.”
“What a terrible place!” said Martha. “Was it long in getting well?”
“No; father got an apothecary to tie it up, and it soon got well.”
“My father is going to show my knees to Mr. Dawson, the apothecary. Do look how they are swelled; and they ache so, you can’t think.”
“O, but I can think, for mine used to ache terribly when I walked and stood before the wheels all day.”
“But yours were never so bad as mine, or I am sure you could not dance about as you do.”
“Not so bad, to be sure, and my arms were never so shrunk away as yours. Look, my arm is twice as big as yours.”