“Take it, granny,” Philena whispered.
“Lemme see it,” Betsey answered.
Thurley tore inside the wagon to re-appear with a motley collection of flimsy tins, bent and battered from their long journey.
A titter ran around the crowd. With the courage born of despair Thurley threw back her head and cried out, “Well, then, if nobody wants to buy anything—I kin sing for our supper!”
“All right, you poor lamb,” Mrs. Prince Hawkins answered, “sing for us, and we’ll see that you get a good hot supper.”
Thurley’s father took his pipe out of his mouth again to say, “She kin sing, ma’am.”
So Thurley, mounting a step of the wagon, began “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” the sun shining on her dark head, lighting up unexpected glints of Titian red. A passing teamster paused to listen, and applauded when she had finished, and the circle of critics were awed and quiet. For the ragged child seemed to vanish; she was merely the instrument for the glorious voice unhampered by artificial notions. Thurley sang as she had always done, winning for the inefficient parents—“life’s sinking ships,” some one had called them—their food and keep.
“Sing us another, and you can stay another day,” Prince Hawkins called out as the applause ceased.
Thurley responded graciously with:
There was an old man and he had a wooden leg,