We went on until the marsh became a thicket of cattails, bulrushes, willow bushes, and blue flags; then I found a path where the lions left the jungle, hid Mr. Pryor and told him he must be very still or they wouldn't come. At last I heard one. I touched Mr. Pryor's sleeve to warn him to keep his eyes on the trail. Pretty soon the lion came in sight. Really it was only a little gray rabbit hopping along, but when it was opposite us, I pinged it in the side, it jumped up and turned a somersault with surprise, and squealed a funny little squeal,—well, I wondered if Mr. Pryor's people didn't hear him, and think he had gone crazy as Paddy Ryan. I never did hear any one laugh so. I thought if he enjoyed it like that, I'd let him shoot one. I do May sometimes; so we went to another place I knew where there was a tiger's den, and I loaded with tiger lily bullets, gave him the gun and showed him where to aim. After we had waited a long time out came a muskrat, and started for the river. I looked to see why Mr. Pryor didn't shoot, and there he was gazing at it as if a snake had charmed him; his hands shaking a little, his cheeks almost red, his eyes very bright.
"Shoot!" I whispered. "It won't stay all day!"
He forgot how to push the ramrod like I showed him, so he reached out and tried to hit it with the gun.
"Don't do that!" I said.
"But it's getting away! It's getting away!" he cried.
"Well, what if it is?" I asked, half provoked. "Do you suppose I really would hurt a poor little muskrat? Maybe it has six hungry babies in its home."
"Oh THAT way," he said, but he kept looking at it, so he made me think if I hadn't been there, he would have thrown a stone or hit it with a stick. It is perfectly wonderful about how some men can't get along without killing things, such little bits of helpless creatures too. I thought he'd better be got from the jungle, so I invited him to see the place at the foot of the hill below our orchard where some men thought they had discovered gold before the war. They had been to California in '49, and although they didn't come home with millions, or anything else except sick and tired, they thought they had learned enough about gold to know it when they saw it.
I told him about it and he was interested and anxious to see the place. If there had been a shovel, I am quite sure he would have gone to digging. He kept poking around with his boot toe, and he said maybe the yokels didn't look good.
He said our meadow was a beautiful place, and when he praised the creek I told him about the wild ducks, and he laughed again. He didn't seem to be the same man when we went back to the road. I pulled some sweet marsh grass and gave his horse bites, so Mr. Pryor asked if I liked animals. I said I loved horses, Laddie's best of all. He asked about it and I told him.
"Hasn't your father but one thoroughbred?"
"Father hasn't any," I said. "Flos really belongs to Laddie, and we are mighty glad he has her."
"You should have one soon, yourself," he said.
"Well, if the rest of them will hurry up and marry off, so the expenses won't be so heavy, maybe I can."
"How many of you are there?" he asked.
"Only twelve," I said.
He looked down the road at our house.
"Do you mean to tell me you have twelve children there?" he inquired.
"Oh no!" I answered. "Some of the big boys have gone into business in the cities around, and some of the girls are married. Mother says she has only to show her girls in the cities to have them snapped up like hot cakes."
"I fancy that is the truth," he said. "I've passed the one who rides the little black pony and she is a picture. A fine, healthy, sensible-appearing young woman!"
"I don't think she's as pretty as your girl," I said.
"Perhaps I don't either," he replied, smiling at me.
Then he mounted his horse.
"I don't remember that I ever have passed that house," he said, "without hearing some one singing. Does it go on all the time?"
"Yes, unless mother is sick."
"And what is it all about?"
"Oh just joy! Gladness that we are alive, that we have things to do that we like, and praising the Lord."
"Umph!" said Mr. Pryor.
"It's just letting out what our hearts are full of," I told him. "Don't you know that song:
"'Tis the old time religion
And you cannot keep it still?'"
He shook his head.
"It's an awful nice song," I explained. "After it sings about all the other things religion is good for, there is one line that says: 'IT'S GOOD FOR THOSE IN TROUBLE.'"
I looked at him straight and hard, but he only turned white and seemed sick.
"So?" said Mr. Pryor. "Well, thank you for the most interesting morning I've had this side England. I should be delighted if you would come and hunt lions in my woods with me some time."
"Oh, do you open the door to children?"
"Certainly we open the door to children," he said, and as I live, he looked so sad I couldn't help thinking he was sorry to close it against any one. A mystery is the dreadfulest thing.
"Then if children don't matter, maybe I can come lion-hunting some time with the Princess, after she has made the visit at our house she said she would."
"Indeed! I hadn't been informed that my daughter contemplated visiting your house," he said. "When was it arranged?"
"My mother invited her last Sunday."
I didn't like the way he said: "O-o-o-h!" Some way it seemed insulting to my mother.
"She did it to please me," I said. "There was a Fairy Princess told me the other day that your girl felt like a stranger, and that to be a stranger was the hardest thing in all the world. She sat a little way from the others, and she looked so lonely. I pulled my mother's sleeve and led her to your girl and made them shake hands, and then mother HAD to ask her to come to dinner with us. She always invites every one she meets coming down the aisle; she couldn't help asking your girl, too. She said she was expected at home, but she'd come some day and get acquainted. She needn't if you object. My mother only asked her because she thought she was lonely, and maybe she wanted to come."
He sat there staring straight ahead and he seemed to grow whiter, and older, and colder every minute.
"Possibly she is lonely," he said at last. "This isn't much like the life she left. Perhaps she does feel herself a stranger. It was very kind of your mother to invite her. If she wants to come, I shall make no objections."
"No, but my father will," I said.
He straightened up as if something had hit him. "Why will he object?"
"On account of what you said about God at our house," I told him. "And then, too, father's people were from England, and he says real Englishmen have their doors wide open, and welcome people who offer friendliness."
Mr. Pryor hit his horse an awful blow. It reared and went racing up the road until I thought it was running away. I could see I had made him angry enough to burst. Mother always tells me not to repeat things; but I'm not smart enough to know what to say, so I don't see what is left but to tell what mother, or father, or Laddie says when grown people ask me questions.
I went home, but every one was too busy even to look at me, so I took Bobby under my arm, hunted father, and told him all about the morning. I wondered what he would think. I never found out.
He wouldn't say anything, so Bobby and I went across the lane, and climbed the gate into the orchard to see if Hezekiah were there and wanted to fight. He hadn't time to fight Bobby because he was busy chasing every wild jay from our