“I’m Daniel Birge,” he said. “My great-great-great-grandfather discovered this lake, and I guess you’ll hear all about our family if you stay here long enough. My father owns that brick building down there. It’s a saloon and a blacksmith shop and a real estate office all in one. Ain’t that awful?” This with a boy grimace. “When I’m a man, it’s going to be a big department store. All the good folks in this town expect to see me go to hell.” Being the only boy officially allowed to swear, Dan waited for her to be shocked.
But Thurley settled herself on the steps of the wagon, hugging her long legs up under her. “I suppose there’ll be some nice people in hell,” she commented by way of comfort.
Daniel drew out a sheet of paper. “I’m going to have Ali Baba print this in big letters on a card and stick it up over the barn, but maybe it would show better if I put it on your wagon—’cause everybody will come to see that, and so they’d see my card.”
Thurley read the offered paper:
Big Show to-morrow in D. Birge’s barn
D. Birge manager
Peple our age—ten pins. Children—five pins
See the great swinging man
and
Mising link.
Come early—but one performance so why mis it?
“Are you twelve years old?” was all Thurley commented, handing it back.
Dan nodded. “Can’t I put it on your wagon, Thurley?” He spoke her name softly, as if uncertain of his right.
“You haven’t spelled people nor missing as it is in books,” she corrected, a small finger pointing out his errors.
“What difference does that make? Folks know what you mean. As long as you make folks know what you mean, you don’t have to waste time learning how to spell and that truck—my father don’t make me go to school, no siree, not if I don’t want to go; he never went much nor his father nor his father nor his father!” he asserted. “We just about own the Corners, too. There ain’t anybody for miles around that dares sass my father. We started the rich folks coming to this lake, and we got a lot of their trade, and my father can buy any man in this town and then tell him where to get off—even the minister—so there! What’s the good of spelling words right?”