noon
She never allowed her singing to interfere with more urgent duties ; the singing could always wait , and she never forgot just where she had left it , but would come back and pick up at the exact place she had discarded it . `` Sure ai n't it great the way ma never drops a stitch in her singin ' , '' her eldest son Teddy had said admiringly one day . `` She can lave a note half turned up in the air , and go off and lave it , and ye 'd think she 'd forgot where she left it , but never a fear o ' ma , two days afther she 'll rache up for it and bring it down and slip off into the choon agin , nate as nate . '' On this particular day Mrs. Watson sang because she could n't help it , for Pearlie was coming home -- From Greenland 's icy mountains , From India 's coral strands , she sang , as she peeled the potatoes -- Where Africa 's sunny fount -- `` Come , Mary alanna , and scour the knives , sure an ' I forgot them at noon to-day . - tains Flow down their crimson sands ; From many an ancient river And many a sandy -- Put a dhrop more wather in the kittle Tommy -- do n't ye hear it spittin ' ? '' - plain They call us to deliver -- Here a shout sounded outside , and Bugsey came tumbling in and said he thought he had seen Pearlie coming away down the road across the track , whereupon Danny cried so uproariously that Bugsey , like the gentleman he was , withdrew his statement , or at least modified it by saying it might be Pearlie and it might not . But it was Pearl , sure enough , and Danny had the pleasure of giving the alarm , beating on the window , maudlin with happiness , while Pearl said good-bye to Tom Motherwell , who had brought her home .