Lucy looked up at her mother. And said Nora, "I would discharge that sassbox of a Chinese at once!"
"Have you more crackers, Sky-High?"
"In my chest, mistress."
"Keep them until the Fourth of July, Sky-High. At any time when you think there are evil spirits about, come up to me."
"May Sky-High let the wan fly over his door?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Van Buren; "while the horse-shoe remains over the stable to keep witches out, you may let the wan stay. You have as much right to your superstitions as we to ours."
Sky-High in a serene and beautiful spirit continued ironing,
Nora went back to her pantry. "It's not I that likes the foreign boy under the roof," she said. "He'll be convertin' the mistress into a haythen! It'll not be long I'll be here!"
Lucy sat down outside among the trees and birds and watched the wan waving gently in the wind. How neat Sky-High looked in his flowing dress of white and blue! She wondered again if he were not indeed a wang! After a while she made up her mind to relate a Jataka story that night.
The curious tales their little serving-man had told, he called Jataka legends—all of them parables to illustrate the teachings of the divine Buddha. (Also these tales had accounts of mountains that were more than a million miles high, of trees that were a thousand miles tall, and of fishes that were thousands of miles long.)