Openings in the Old Trail | Page 5

She drew back from the fence as she spoke, and
waved him a pretty farewell. Leonidas, half sorry, half relieved, darted
away.
He ran to the post-office, which he never had done before. Loyally he
never looked at her letter, nor, indeed, at his own again, swinging the
hand that held them far from his side. He entered the post-office
directly, going at once to the letter-box and depositing the precious
missive with the others. The post-office was also the "country store,"
and Leonidas was in the habit of still further protracting his errands
there by lingering in that stimulating atmosphere of sugar, cheese, and
coffee. But to-day his stay was brief, so transitory that the postmaster
himself inferred audibly that "old man Boone must have been tanning
Lee with a hickory switch." But the simple reason was that Leonidas
wished to go back to the stockade fence and the fair stranger, if haply
she was still there. His heart sank as, breathless with unwonted haste,
he reached the clearing and the empty buckeye shade. He walked
slowly and with sad diffidence by the deserted stockade fence. But
presently his quick eye discerned a glint of white among the laurels
near the house. It was SHE, walking with apparent indifference away
from him towards the corner of the clearing and the road. But this he
knew would bring her to the end of the stockade fence, where he must
pass--and it did. She turned to him with a bright smile of affected
surprise. "Why, you're as swift-footed as Mercury!"
Leonidas understood her perfectly. Mercury was the other name for
quicksilver--and that was lively, you bet! He had often spilt some on
the floor to see it move. She must be awfully cute to have noticed it
too--cuter than his sisters. He was quite breathless with pleasure.
"I put your letter in the box all right," he burst out at last.
"Without any one seeing it?" she asked.
"Sure pop! nary one! The postmaster stuck out his hand to grab it, but I
just let on that I didn't see him, and shoved it in myself."

"You're as sharp as you're good," she said smilingly. "Now, there's just
ONE thing more I want you to do. Forget all about this--won't you?"
Her voice was very caressing. Perhaps that was why he said boldly:
"Yes, ma'am, all except YOU."
"Dear me, what a compliment! How old are you?"
"Goin' on fifteen," said Leonidas confidently.
"And going very fast," said the lady mischievously. "Well, then, you
needn't forget ME. On the contrary," she added, after looking at him
curiously, "I would rather you'd remember me. Good-by--or, rather,
good-afternoon--if I'm to be remembered, Leon."
"Good-afternoon, ma'am."
She moved away, and presently disappeared among the laurels. But her
last words were ringing in his ears. "Leon"--everybody else called him
"Lee" for brevity; "Leon"--it was pretty as she said it.
He turned away. But it so chanced that their parting was not to pass
unnoticed, for, looking up the hill, Leonidas perceived his elder sister
and little brother coming down the road, and knew that they must have
seen him from the hilltop. It was like their "snoopin'"!
They ran to him eagerly.
"You were talking to the stranger," said his sister breathlessly.
"She spoke to me first," said Leonidas, on the defensive.
"What did she say?"
"Wanted to know the eleckshun news," said Leonidas with cool
mendacity, "and I told her."
This improbable fiction nevertheless satisfied them. "What was she like?
Oh, do tell us, Lee!" continued his sister.

Nothing would have delighted him more than to expatiate upon her
loveliness, the soft white beauty of her hands, the "cunning" little
puckers around her lips, her bright tender eyes, the angelic texture of
her robes, and the musical tinkle of her voice. But Leonidas had no
confidant, and what healthy boy ever trusted his sister in such matter!
"YOU saw what she was like," he said, with evasive bluntness.
"But, Lee"--
But Lee was adamant. "Go and ask her," he said.
"Like as not you were sassy to her, and she shut you up," said his sister
artfully. But even this cruel suggestion, which he could have so easily
flouted, did not draw him, and his ingenious relations flounced
disgustedly away.
But Leonidas was not spared any further allusion to the fair stranger;
for the fact of her having spoken to him was duly reported at home, and
at dinner his reticence was again sorely attacked. "Just like her, in spite
of all her airs and graces, to hang out along the fence like any ordinary
hired girl, jabberin' with anybody that went along the road," said his
mother incisively. He knew that she didn't like her new neighbors, so
this did not surprise nor greatly pain