The boys departed to make whistles with the new knives, Pearl offering a prize for the shrillest and fartherest reaching; to be tried at twelve o'clock noon, and silence settled once more on the kitchen.
"It's sort of too bad you came home on Saturday, Pearl," said her mother anxiously, as she toasted a slice of bread over the glowing wood coals. "The boys will pester you to death today and tomorrow—though of course I know you have no other time."
"I like to be pestered, ma," said Pearl, as she began on a generous helping of bacon and eggs. "Home is the best place, ma, and I never knew just how good it was to have home and folks of my own, as the day I went to school and found no children there. Isn't it queer, ma, how hard people can be on each other. It makes me afraid God must be disappointed lots of times, and feel like pulling down another flood and getting away to a fresh start again.
"But I am not going to talk about anything—until I get back to feeling the way I did when I went away. I want to see the hens and the cows and the new pigs. I want to get out in the honest, freckly sunshine. Do the potatoes need hoeing, ma? All right, pa and I will go at them. I like people, and all that, but I have to mix in lots of blue sky and plants, and a few good, honest horses, cows, dogs and cats—who have no underlying motives and are never suspicious or jealous, and have no regrets over anything they've done."
"But don't you like the city, Pearl?" Mary asked. "Don't you wish we all lived there? I do, you bet."
"I am glad my people live right here, Mary, out in the open, where there's room to breathe and time to think. O, I like the city, with its street cars weaving the streets together like shuttles; I love their flashing blue and red and green lights, as they slide past the streets, clanging their bells, and with faces looking out of the windows, and every one of the people knowing where they are going. I like the crowds that surge along the streets at night, and the good times they are having. I like it—for a visit. It's a great place to go to—if you have your own folks with you—I think I'd like it—on a wedding trip—or the like of that.
"But I want to see everything 'round home," said Pearl quickly. "Is the garden all up, and what did you sow, and where are the hens set, and did the cabbage plants catch?"
"You bet they did," said Mary proudly. "I transplanted them, and I put them in close. Pa said I would need to take out every second one, but I said we'd try them this way for once. You know the way cabbages sprawl and straggle all over the place—all gone to leaves. Well, mine won't, you bet, they'll heart up, because there's nothing else for them to do. Pa admits now its the best way. They've got no room to grow spraddly and they're just a fine sight already. Cabbages are just like any one else; it doesn't do to give them too much of their own way, and let them think they own the earth."
When breakfast was over, Pearl, Mary and Mrs. Watson went out into the hazy blue sunshine. The ravine below the house was musical with thrushes and meadow-larks. The blossoms had gone, and already the wild cherries and plums were forming their fruit. Cattle fed peacefully on the river banks, and some were cropping the volunteer growth of oats that had come on the summer fallow. The grain was just high enough to run ripples of light, as the gentlest of breezes lazily passed.
Pearl remembered the hopes and visions that had come to her the first day she and her father had come to the farm, and through all its dilapidation and neglect, she had seen that it could be made into a home of comfort and prosperity, and now the dream had come true. The Watson family were thriving; their farm had not failed them; comforts, and even a few luxuries were theirs, and Pearl's heart grew very soft and tender with a sense of gratitude.