The woman was young and slender. Her face, tanned by the weather, was a deep olive. Her hair was black, lustrous and heavy, and hung down her back in a thick plait. Her eyes were dark and big. The whole aspect of the woman was that of one untimely matured, and permanently saddened. Her blue dress was of a cheaper material than that of the child's. She carried a tin bucket with a wooden handle. The woman and the dog stopped when they saw the School-teacher standing by the spring. But the child greeted the stranger in his baby dialect. “How-da-do man,” he said. He went on, the little feet tottering over the uneven path. When he reached the Schoolteacher, he spoke again. “Up-a-go,” he said. The man stooped and lifted the child into his arms. The sunny smile that lighted the baby face seemed to enter and illumine his own. Something of it, too, moved into the face of the woman, but the cast there of perpetual melancholy seemed loath to depart, as though the muscles were unaccustomed to a change. The child turned about in the man's arms, and pointed his finger toward two catbirds that were fluttering in a neighboring bush. “Giggles,” he said. The manner in which the woman's big melancholy eyes followed every motion of the little boy indicated how her heart enveloped him. He was evidently her one treasure. The smile, struggling to possess the woman's face, seemed to descend and sweeten her mouth. “He means them birds,” she said. “He's got a kind a talk of his own.” “I understand him perfectly,” said the man. “Do you?” said the woman, the smile gaining in her face. “I thought nobody could understand him but me. You must take to little children.” “I love little children,” replied the School-teacher. The child put his hand into the pocket of his apron and drew out a battered toy--a cheap, little, painted, wooden toy, so broken and worn that no one could tell what animal it was originally intended to represent. He held it up for the Schoolteacher's admiration. “Gup,” he said. “He means a horse,” the woman explained. “He's heard folks down to the mill say 'git up' to horses they was ridin', an' he thinks that's the name of it, but he's got names of his own. Now he calls a bird an' a fish an' a mouse a 'giggle.' I don't know why. Because a bird ain't like a fish, an' neither one of them ain't like a mouse.” “I believe I understand why he gives them all the same name,” replied the School-teacher. The woman came closer to the man and the child. Her eyes took on an expression of deep inquiry. “What do you reckon is the reason? I've thought about it often.” “I think it's because a bird, a fish and a mouse all appear to him to have the same motion, to wiggle.” The woman's face cleared. “I never thought of that. I reckon that is it. But now, he's got names that ain't like the things at all. Because he calls milk 'bugala' and there ain't no such word as 'bugala.' An' if it's sour or anything he calls it 'nim bugala.'”