Her remark had been heard by Minerva, and she said to James: “Do folks leave here in winter?” “No, indeed,” said James. “Winter’s the best time of the year up here. I jus’ like the cold. Coastin’ from here to the village, a mile and a half. Everybody does it. And skating! Umm. You ought to stay up here in winter.” “Oh, lawdy, if it’s so sad in the summer I’d die in the winter. Don’t the wind howl like a dog?” “Like a thousand dogs, but I like it. You come up here an’ visit my old mother in the winter, an’ I’ll teach you to skate and you’ll never want to go back.” “Imagine Minerva here in winter,” whispered Ethel to me. “Poor thing. She would die of the horrors. But, do you think she is more contented?” “I certainly do. She is going to have new clothes—Is that a sheep?” It turned out to be a rock. “There are no sheep around here,” said Ethel. “Bert said so.” “I wonder if Minerva would be frightened at sheep?” “She might be. The most peaceful animals aren’t always the most peaceful looking. I think a cow is much more diabolical than a lion as far as looks go. A lion is kind of benign and I dare say that a lion that has just eaten a man looks sleepy and contented and good-natured as he licks his chops.” “I think the most dreadful looking beast in the whole menagerie is the goat, although, come to think of it, he is more likely to be found in the back yard than in the menagerie, and I dare say that Minerva knows him like a book. Yes, he has the devil beaten to a pulp, as Harry Banks would say, and yet he never has the bad manners to spit like the—what was that beautiful beast that spit in the face of that pompous little man down at Dreamland?” “Oh, you mean the llama. Wasn’t that funny? And he did look so innocent. And now that spitting is a misdemeanor and the practice is going out, I suppose the llama will steadily increase in value—” “Do you mind if we sing. Mr. Vernon?” said James, respectfully. I thought a minute. If James had been driving and Minerva was by his side on the front seat it would have been perfectly natural for Ethel and me to break out into song on such a perfect day in such a lonely place. As the conditions were reversed; as I was driving and James and Minerva were on the back seat, it seemed to me perfectly proper that they should be the ones to break out into roundelays, and I told them to break out—couching the permission in other language. They began, after a whispered consultation, and the song which they sang was as follows: