Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/93

 want to go to Germany even before Wimsch said anything. Of course it 's a secret. You 're the first one I 've told." Dr. Archie smiled indulgently. "That 's a long way off. Is that what you 've got in your hard noddle?" He put his hand on her hair, but this time she shook him off.

"No, I don't think much about it. But you talk about going, and a body has to have something to go to!"

"That 's so." Dr. Archie sighed. "You 're lucky if you have. Poor Wunsch, now, he has n't. What do such fellows come out here for? He 's been asking me about my mining stock, and about mining towns. What would he do in a mining town? He would n't know a piece of ore if he saw one. He 's got nothing to sell that a mining town wants to buy. Why don't those old fellows stay at home? We won't need them for another hundred years. An engine wiper can get a job, but a piano player! Such people can't make good."

"My grandfather Alstrom was a musician, and he made good."

Dr. Archie chuckled. "Oh, a Swede can make good anywhere, at anything! You 've got that in your favor, miss. Come, you must be getting home."

Thea rose. "Yes, I used to be ashamed of being a Swede, but I 'm not any more. Swedes are kind of common, but I think it 's better to be something."

"It surely is! How tall you are getting. You come above my shoulder now."

"I 'll keep on growing, don't you think? I particularly want to be tall. Yes, I guess I must go home. I wish there 'd be a fire."

"A fire?"

"Yes, so the fire-bell would ring and the roundhouse whistle would blow, and everybody would come running out. Sometime I 'm going to ring the fire-bell myself and stir them all up."

"You 'd be arrested."