“I noticed it,” said Mary. Indeed Janie’s singing had mounted to the treetops, an arrow of sound, sharp, clear, yet never shrill.
“You old nuisance!” cried Jane. “Why don’t you ever want to fly? And why do you sing in that purring alto, just like yourself? I want to jump over the moon and sing to C above high C! It’s just because you’ve brown hair!”
“I don’t know,” suggested Mary. “It was the cow who jumped over the moon, and cows are supposed to be calm folk. Maybe she was a red cow though; Mother Goose forgot her complexion.”
“She ought to have been an Ayreshire cow, going up in the air like that.” Janie rippled with laughter over this discovery. “Never mind, Molly Bawn; I’d soon fly back again, if I flew away from you, and I don’t believe if I flew to the hanging gardens of Babylon I’d be happy to hang in them, away from the Garden garden, long!”
“Of course you wouldn’t!” agreed Mary promptly. “We both know there’s no place like home, but I settle down knowing it, and you keep fermenting like yeast! That’s what I don’t understand.”
“Wine sounds nicer than yeast and ferments just as much,” Jane reproached her. “Yeast is gray and ugly and smelly; grape juice fermenting is lovely. I can’t help being fizzy! Fuzzy, too, and red-haired! But I’d never fly far from you, Mary blessing.” And Jane ran over to hug Mary till she toppled her over. They both laughed, and returned to their flowers, one cutting, the other transplanting. Jane resumed her singing, her voice soaring high in “I love the name of Mary,” transposed to an unreasonable key.
“I ought to have been the soprano Garden, with my name,” said Mary. “I’ve the prima donna name and the secunda donna voice—no, the tertia donna voice—such as it is! The alto isn’t even the second lady of the opera, is she?”
“I don’t know! What in all this world is all this learned Latiny sounding count you’re trying! We’ve always called you our Opera Star, Mary Garden, haven’t we? I know what the prima donna is, but I don’t know what your secunda and tertia—oh, I see! Prima is first—yes, I see! You’re not much like an opera Mary Garden, I suppose, but you can sing! I love your voice—just like a lovely cat that’s had plenty of cream, purring all contented on a cushion! Soft and true and sweet; that’s your voice, little Mary Garden—even if you’re not big Mary Garden!”
“Well, Jane!” cried Mary, when Jane paused. “A cat purring, after cream! But it isn’t as though I thought anything about singing. What are we trying to get at? I never even think of singing. I see Win coming out of the house, and I hear Florimel talking like mad. I wonder what it is, now!”
“Goodness knows!” sighed Jane, as if anything might be expected of their youngest—as indeed it might!