"Oh, thank you, Mr. Russell," he said.
That night Arthur wrote home a letter that would have
made an appropriate circular for the Immigration Department
to send to prospective settlers.
CHAPTER XIV
THE FAITH THAT MOVETH MOUNTAINS
When supper was over and Pearl had washed the heavy white
dishes Mrs. Motherwell told her, not unkindly, that she
could go to bed. She would sleep in the little room over
the kitchen in Polly's old bed.
"You don't need no lamp," she said, "if you hurry. It is
light up there."
Mrs. Motherwell was inclined to think well of Pearl. It
was not her soft brown eyes, or her quaint speech that
had won Mrs. Motherwell's heart. It was the way she
scraped the frying-pan.
Pearl went up the ladder into the kitchen loft, and found
herself in a low, long room, close and stifling, one
little window shone light against the western sky and on
it innumerable flies buzzed unceasingly. Old boxes, old
bags, old baskets looked strange and shadowy in the
gathering gloom. The Motherwells did not believe in giving
away anything. The Indians who went through the
neighbourhood each fall looking for "old clo'" had long
ago learned to pass by the big stone house. Indians do
not appreciate a strong talk on shiftlessness the way
they should, with a vision of a long cold winter ahead
of them.
Pearl gazed around with a troubled look on her face. A
large basket of old carpet rags stood near the little
bed.
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