“That’s what people say.”
“Well, they are mistaken. I am,—I am”—Ethel did not find it easy to say just what she was. She could not say, “I am a painter,” or, “I am a musician.” So she contented herself with saying, “I am an American!”
“America—that is a country. Is it farther than Paris?”
“Oh, yes!”
“My papa has a machine to mow hay which comes from Chicago. Is that a city? Is it as big as the city yonder?”
“It is as big as all that!” Ethel said, opening her arms to the boundless horizon. “And three times as high as the tallest tree.”
“My papa has been in Buenos Aires. Perhaps you saw him there?”
“Never.”
“You were never bitten by serpents?”
“Never.”