“And gold—” said the child in a soft, monotonous voice. They were playing a game.
“Not much gold, I’m afraid,” said Simeon, shaking his head, “but it is a wonderful mountain full of beautiful things—that can’t get out.”
“Why can’t they get out?” she demanded as if some foolish mystery lay behind his talk.
He hesitated a moment. “A bad man keeps them there,” he said. “He has the key.”
“Won’t he let ’em out?” It was a shrewd little wondering, groping question toward the truth, but it was full of sing-song happiness.
She nestled closer while the pencil went its way, drawing two long lines that stretched side by side across the paper. They readied the mountain and stopped.
“What is that?” she asked.
“That is a railroad that the bad man will build,” he said, putting in some extra lines.
They watched the pencil in silence.
“I know a bad man,” she said idly, as if it were not important, but worth mentioning since it concerned Ellen.