"Ma, you're funny," laughed Pearl, "I wish you could see how funny you are. Every Christmas ever since I can remember, that's what you said—you might never live to see another, and it used to nearly break my heart when I was little, and until I made up my mind that you were a poor guesser. You said it last Christmas just the same, and here you are with your ears back and your neck bowed, heading up well for another year. You're quite right in saying you may not be here, but if you are not you'll be in a better place. Sure, things may happen, but it's better to have things happen than to be scared all the time that they may happen. The young lads may take the measles and then the mumps, and the whooping-cough to finish up on—and the rosey-posey is going around too. But even if they do—it's most likely they will get over it—they always have. Up to the present, the past has taken care of the future. Maybe it always will."
"O yes, I know there's always a chance things will go wrong—I know it, Ma—" Pearl's eyes dimmed a little, and she held her lips tighter; "there's always a chance. The cows may all choke to death seeing which of them can swallow the biggest turnip—the cats may all have fits—the chickens may break into the hen-house and steal a bag of salt, eat it and die. But I don't believe they will. You just have to trust them—and you'll have to trust me the same way. Just look, Ma—"
She took a five-dollar bill from her purse and spread it on the ironing-board before her mother. "Fifteen o' them every month! See the pictures that's on it, of the two grand old men. See the fine chin-whiskers on His Nibs here! Ain't it a pity he can't write his name, Ma, and him President of the Bank, and just has to make a bluff at it like this. Sure, and isn't that enough to drive any girl out to teach school, to see to it that bank presidents get a chance to learn to write. Bank presidents always come from the country; I'll be having a row of them at Purple Springs—I'm sure. They will be able to tell in after years at Rotary Club luncheons how they ran barefooted in November, and made wheat gum—and chewed strings together. They just like to tell about their chilblains and their stone-bruises."
Her mother looked at her wonderingly: "You think of queer things, Pearl—I don't know where you get it—I can't make you out—and there's another thing troubling me, Pearl. You are goin' away—I don't suppose you will be livin' much at home now. You'll be makin' your own way."
She paused, and Pearl knew her mother was laboring under heavy emotion. She knew she was struggling to say what was difficult for her to get into words.
"When you've been away for a while and then come back to us, maybe you'll find our ways strange to you, for you're quick in the pick-up, Pearl, and we're only plain workin' people, and never had a chance at learnin'. There may come a time when you're far above us, Pearl, and our ways will seem strange to you. I get worried about it, Pearl, for I know if that time ever comes, it will worry you too, for you're not the kind that can hurt your own and not feel it."
Pearl looked at her mother almost with alarm in her face, and the fears that had been assailing her that her family were beyond the social pale came back for a moment. But with the fear came a fierce tenderness for all of them. She saw in a flash of her quick imagination the tragedy of it from her mother's side, and in her heart there was just one big, burning, resolute desire, that pain from this source might never smite her mother's loving heart. The hard hands, the sunburnt face, the thin hair that she had not taken time to care for; the hard-working shoulders, slightly stooped; the scrawny neck, with its tell-tale lines of age; were eloquent in their appeal. Pearl saw the contrast of her mother's life and what her own promised to be, and her tender heart responded, and when she spoke, it was in an altered tone. All the fun had gone from it now, and it was not a child's voice, nor a girl's voice, but a woman's, with all a woman's gentleness and understanding that spoke.
"Mother," she said, "I know what is in your heart, and I will tell you how I feel about it. You're afraid your ways may seem strange to me. Some of them are strange to me now. I often wonder how any one can be as unselfish as you are and keep it up day in and day out, working for other people. Most of us can make a good stab at it, and keep it up for a day or so, but to hit the steady pace, never looking back and never being cross or ugly about it—that's great!"
"And about the other … If ever there comes a time when an honest heart and a brave spirit in a woman seems strange to me, and I get feeling myself above them—if I ever get thinking light of honesty and kindness and patience and hard work, and get thinking myself above them—then your ways will be strange to me, but not until then!"
Mrs. Watson's face cleared, and a look of pride shone in her eyes. Her face seemed to lose some of its lines, and to reflect some of the lavish beauty of her daughter.