“I’ll never go there!” said Isla with decision. “It’s like the jail you told me of, over on the main.”
“Just!” said her father, nodding. “Only folks build these jails and live in them, because they like ’em. Some stay in ’em all winter, I believe, and never go out from October to May. And call that living! I’ll take my way every time, thank you, if it is shorter.”
“Are they white folks?”
“White? yes, child! white as anybody is; whiter, too, like a cellar-plant, because they get no sun.”
“I didn’t know!” said Isla. “I thought maybe they turned black. But I’ll never go there.”
Her father mused; then he drew a larger building at the end of the street, with towers and pinnacles.
“Here’d be a church!” he said. “You’d like that, Isla. There’d be music, an organ, likely, and lots of singing. The windows are coloured red and blue, and the light comes in like sunset all day.”
“That’s pretty!” the child nodded, approvingly. “What do they do there, Giles?”
“Like a meeting-house; say prayers, and preach, and sing hymns and things.”