“Listen to the doctor,” Pearl commanded sternly, “or he’ll raise a gumboil on ye.”

Thus admonished Danny ceased his sobs; but he showed no sign of interest when the doctor spoke of popcorn, and at the mention of ice-cream he looked simply bored.

“He’s awful fond of ‘hoo-hung’ candy,” Pearlie suggested in a whisper, holding her hand around her mouth so that Danny might not hear her.

“Ten cents’ worth of ‘hoo-hung’ candy to the boy that says good-bye to his sister like a gentleman and rides home with me.”

Danny dried his eyes on Pearl’s skirt, kissed her gravely and climbed into the buggy beside the doctor.  Waterloo was won!

Pearl did not trust herself to look back as she walked along the deeply beaten road.

The yellow cone-flowers raised their heads like golden stars along the roadside, and the golden glory of the approaching harvest lay upon everything.  To the right the Tiger Hills lay on the horizon wrapped in a blue mist.  Flocks of blackbirds swarmed over the ripening oats, and angrily fought with each other.

“And it not costin’ them a cent!” Pearl said in disgust as she stopped to watch them.

The exhilaration of the air, the glory of the waving grain, the profusion of wild flowers that edged the fields with purple and yellow were like wine to her sympathetic Irish heart as she walked through the grain fields and drank in all the beauties that lay around, and it was not until she came in sight of the big stone house, gloomy and bare, that she realised with a start of homesickness that she was Pearl Watson, aged twelve, away from home for the first time, and bound to work three months for a woman of reputed ill-temper.

“But I’ll do it,” Pearl said, swallowing the lump that gathered in her throat, “I can work.  Nobody never said that none of the Watsons couldn’t work.  I’ll stay out me time if it kills me.”

So saying, Pearl knocked timidly at the back door.  Myriads of flies buzzed on the screen.  From within a tired voice said, “Come in.”

Pearl walked in and saw a large bare room, with a long table in the middle.  A sewing machine littered with papers stood in front of one window.

The floor had been painted a dull drab, but the passing of many feet had worn the paint away in places.  A stove stood in one corner.  Over the sink a tall, round-shouldered woman bent trying to get water from an asthmatic pump.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” she said in a tone so very unpleasant that Pearl thought she must have expected someone else.

“Yes’m,” Pearl said meekly.  “Who were ye expectin’?”

Mrs. Motherwell stopped pumping for a minute and looked at Pearl.

“Why didn’t ye git here earlier?” she asked.

“Well,” Pearl began, “I was late gettin’ started by reason of the washin’ and the ironin’, and Jimmy not gettin’ back wid the boots.  He went drivin’ cattle for Vale the butcher, and he had to have the boots for the poison ivy is that bad, and because the sugar o’ lead is all done and anyway ma don’t like to keep it in the house, for wee Danny might eat it—­he’s that stirrin’ and me not there to watch him now.”