Pocket Island | Page 9

at her side, and how glad he is of the chance to help
her up and soothe her fears no one but himself ever knows. She, too,
has been picking berries, and has come suddenly upon a monster snake
just gliding from a cedar bough almost over her head. When her fright
subsides he at once hunts for and kills that reptile with far more
satisfaction than he ever felt in killing one before. It is an ungrateful
return, for although the boy knew it not, the snake has done him a
greater kindness than he ever realized. Then when all danger is
removed, how sweet it is to sit beside her in the shade and talk over
schooldays while he looks into her tender blue eyes. And how glad he
is to fill her pail with berries which he has picked, and when the sun is
almost down how charming it is to walk home with her along the
maple-shaded lane! He even hopes that he will see another snake so
that he can kill that also, and show her how brave a boy is. But no more
snakes come to his aid that day and only the gentlest of breezes rustles
the spreading boughs that shade their pathway. When she thanks him at

parting, a little look of gratitude makes her blue eyes seem more tender
than ever to him and her voice sound like sweetest music.
His world has enlarged wonderfully now, for Liddy has entered into it.
CHAPTER V.
THE BOY'S FIRST PARTY.
The Stillman girls were going to give a party, and the boy was invited.
It was the first social recognition he had ever received, and it disturbed
his equilibrium. It also made him feel that he was almost a man.
He had for some time longed to be a man, and for a year past had felt
hurt when called a boy. When the little note of invitation, requesting
"the pleasure of your company," etc., reached him, he felt he had
suddenly grown taller. He realized it more fully that night when he
tried on his best clothes to see how they would look. The sleeves of his
jacket were too short and his pants missed connections with his boots
by full two inches. The gap seemed to swell the size of his feet, also.
When he looked in his little mirror he noticed a plainly defined growth
of down on his lip, and his hair needed cutting.
Then the invitation filled him with mingled fear, surprise and pleasure.
He hardly knew, after thinking it all over, whether he wanted to go or
not. The one fact that turned the scale was Liddy. He was sure she
would be there. But then, that painful gap between his pants and boots!
He had thought a good deal about her ever since school was over. Now
that he was invited to a party where she would be, he began to feel just
a little afraid of her.
When the important evening came and he presented himself at the
Stillmans' house, and lifted the big iron knocker on the front door, its
clang sounded loud enough to wake the dead, and his heart was going
like a trip-hammer. Mary Stillman met him at the door, and her
welcome was so cordial he couldn't understand it. He wasn't much used
to society. All his schoolmates were there--boys that he had played ball,
snared suckers, and gone in swimming with scores of times, and girls

that seemed a good deal taller than when they went to school. Most of
them were dressed in white, and with their rosy cheeks and bright eyes
made a pretty picture.
They were nearly all in one of the big front rooms, and among them
was Liddy, in pink muslin with a broad sash, and bows of blue ribbon
at the ends of her two braids of hair. She looked so sweet he was more
afraid of her than ever. His first thought was to go into the room where
some of the boys were, but Mary Stillman almost pushed him into the
other room and he felt that he was in for it. When he sat down next to
another boy and looked at the girls whispering and giggling together,
he almost wished he had not come. Then when he thought of that
unfriendly separation of his pants and boots he was sure of it. But he
caught a pleasant smile and nod from Liddy, and that gave him a world
of courage.
Then he began to talk to the boy next to him, and was just beginning to
forget that he was at a party, in an exchange of experiences about bee
hunting and finding wild honey, when the oldest Stillman girl proposed