“An’ I’ve—found you now—you’ll have to—promise me not to go back—not where they can get you. Si Perkins said—as how they’d soon forget—if you just stayed away long enough.” The boy looked at her happily. “Let’s—let’s keep on—an’ see what lies over the next hill.”
To Patsy this was all an unintelligible wandering of mind; she must humor it. “All right, laddy, let’s keep on. Maybe we’ll be finding a wood full of wild creatures, or an ocean full of ships.”
“P’r’aps. But I’d rather—have it a big—big city. I never—saw a city.”
“Aye, ’tis a city then”—Patsy’s tone carried conviction—“the grandest city ever built; and the towers will be touching the clouds, and the streets will be white as sea-foam; and there will be a great stretch of green meadow for fairs—”
“An’ circuses?”
“What else but circuses! And at the entrance there will be a gate with tall white columns—”
The sound Patsy had been listening for came at last through the open windows: the pad-pad-pad of horses’ hoofs coming fast.
Joseph looked past Patsy and saw for the first time the candles by his bed. His eyes sparkled. “They are—woppin’ big columns—an’ at night—they have lighted lamps on top—all shinin’. Don’t they?”
“Aye, to point the way in the dark.”