"We got five white pigeons to our house."
"Have you, dearie?" said the fat lady.
"Pigeons and ducks—little eenty ones, just like in the book my Gramma gimme; and they'll swim an' swim around in my back yard. Little ducks, chickens, we got; gobble-obble-obs; ducks wiv long necks like in the park—every kind."
Alas! the truth was that the Marceys owned not so much as a canary bird. There was no place for a duck to swim within a mile and a half of their house.
"I'm goin' to get a little brover," pursued Sara. "I had one little bover. He growed up big. Now I'm goin' to get another brover. P'rhaps a sister an' a brover."
This was the first intimation that Sara's father had of such news. But he had little time to ponder upon it. Sara, it seemed, had been merely giving her imagination a little trial spin when she invented a lake in the back yard, poultry of every kind, and a new brother. Now she started off with:
"My grandma's going to buy me a little woolly camel," and from there on she grew lyrical. There was nothing she didn't dare to tell the guileless fat lady, whom she must leave anyway in a few minutes and who never could ask her embarrassing questions in the future. Sara soared away, released from all confining realities. Now in the problem play Tom's face should have been contorted with anguish. This moment should have been one of the crucial ones, where Sara confirms his worst suspicions. But in real life we seldom live up to the histrionic possibilities which life presents us. In the face of Sara, the lyrical liar, Tom laughed.
