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.
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