Page:The Professor's House - Willa Cather.pdf/126

 one. My trunk is at the station, but I was afraid to leave the pottery. You don't get them out whole like that very often."

"But get them out of what, from where? I want to know all about it."

"Maybe some day, Ma'am, I can tell you," he said, wiping his sooty fingers on his handkerchief. His reply was courteous but final. He strapped his bag and picked up his hat, then hesitated and smiled. Taking a buckskin bag from his pocket, he walked over to the window-seat where the child- ren were, and held out his hand to them, saying: "These I would like to give to the little girls." In his palm lay two lumps of soft blue stone, the colour of robins' eggs, or of the sea on halcyon days of summer.

The children marvelled. "Oh, what are they?" "Turquoises, just the way they come out of the mine, before the jewellers have tampered with them and made them look green. The Indians like them this way."

Again Mrs. St. Peter demurred. She told him very kindly that she couldn't let him give his stones to the children. "They are worth a lot of money."

"I'd never sell them. They were given to me by a friend. I have a lot, and they're no use to me, but they'll make pretty playthings for little girls." His voice was so wistful and winning that there was nothing to do.