CHAPTER VII THE SINGING “Say,” said Hi as he and Jim washed their faces and gave an extra fine brushing to their hair, “ain’t I the lucky one though, going off like this with you-all? I don’t see how it comes your pa and ma are so good to me and Zalie.” “Comes natural to them,” growled Jim, much embarrassed by this praise of the persons he loved best. “They’re even good to me.” “Get out!” cried Hi, sprinkling some water on Jim’s clean waist. “Here you, if you think so much of my ma, what are you spoiling all her work for?” shouted Jim. “You need a little learning, that’s what you need!” The next moment the two boys had gripped and were rolling on the floor together. Mrs. McBirney heard the rumpus and came running, but her gentle voice could barely make itself heard as the two boys threshed around on the floor, and it took Thomas McBirney’s strong hand and firm voice to bring them to their feet again, half laughing and half angry, and red as turkey cocks. “A likely way to begin the Sabbath,” pa reproved them. “Brush yourselves off now, and get calmed down before we start. It will be a pleasant sight, seeing you two standing up hymn-singing, after the way you’ve been carrying on.” However, when fifteen minutes later the party started off down the mountain side, the two boys looked like perfect models. Hi was allowed to sit on the front seat with pa; Jim, Azalea and Mrs. McBirney sat behind. Ma wore her one white dress and her black bonnet with the green ribbon, and Azalea had on her new white dress with the cat stitching in blue; and her white hat with its blue ribbons was the very hat of hats for her to wear. Pa McBirney felt secretly proud of his family, but it wouldn’t have been his way to give them a notion of that. However, ma, who knew most of the things that pa thought, could tell that he was well pleased. He showed Hi all the landmarks—the little broken branches that looked like two birds sitting side by side on a gaunt live-oak limb that reached over their path; the “cannon,” a huge prone log which had once fallen across the road, and had been sawed in such a manner that it looked like a gigantic gun ready to be fired at them; the “haunted house” where a family of white-faced, queer folk lived, who ran in and drew down the shades when they saw anyone coming; and the “spy glass,” a curious opening through miles of woodland, through which a person could look down the mountain side and away across the valley, where the cotton and the corn grew in their rich fields and the silver streams wound in and out. “I tell you, we that live in a place like this are likely to forget our blessings,” remarked Mr. McBirney. “Every way you turn, it’s sightly and a comfort to the eye. If I had to live where it was all dirt and noise and folks crowding on top of one another, seems like I’d want to die.” “Wouldn’t you, just!” murmured ma sympathetically.