“Chicago,” suggested Bud politely.
“Just that! Chickagoo or Chicago, it depends on the way you spell it,” said Kate readily. “I was brought up to call it Chickagoo. What a length to come on New Year’s day! Were you not frightened? Try one of them brown biscuits. And how are they all keeping in America?”
She asked the question with such tender solicitude that Bud saw no humour in it, and answered gravely—
“Pretty spry, thank you. Have you been there?”
“Me!” cried Kate, with her bosom heaving at the very thought. Then her Highland vanity came to her rescue. “No,” she said, “I have not been exactly what you might call altogether there, but I had a cousin that started for Australia, and got the length of Paisley. It’ll be a big place America? Put butter on it.”
“The United States of America are bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by the Pacific, on the south by Mexico and the Gulf, and on the north by an imaginary line called Canada. The State of New York alone is as large as England,” said Bud glibly, repeating a familiar lesson.
“What a size!” cried Kate. “Take another of them brown biscuits. Scotland’s not slack neither for size; there’s Glasgow and Oban, and Colonsay and Stornoway. There’ll not be hills in America?’
“There’s no hills, just mountains,” said Bud. “The chief mountain ranges are the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. They’re about the biggest mountains in the world.”
“Talking about big things, look at the big pennyworth of milk we get here,” said Kate, producing a can: it was almost the last ditch of her national pride.
The child looked gravely into the can, and then glanced shrewdly at the maid.