While Caroline Was Growing | Page 6

a minute."
But when he returned she was not there.
The houses were thinning out rapidly; one side of the road was already
only a succession of fields, and along a tiny worn path through one of
these Caroline was hurrying nervously. She crossed the widening brook,
almost a little river now, and kept along its farther bank for half an hour,
then left it and struck into the fringe of the woods.
It was very still here; the road was far away, and only the chatter of the
birds and the liquid cluck of the little stream disturbed the stillness of
the growing things. She walked softly, except for the whisper of
brushing against the spreading branches that choked the tiny path. The
heat of noon was rising to its climax, and the shafts of light struck
warm on her cheeks.
Suddenly a sound disturbed the peace of the woods--a scratching,
rattling, scurrying sound. Something was moving through the dead
leaves that had gathered among the roots and trunks. She started back
nervously, but jumped forward again with a cry of delight, and caught
William Thayer in her arms.
Even as he was licking her cheek, the path widened, the trees turned

into bushes, the underbrush melted away, and the brook, a little river
now, bent in upon them in a broad curve, spanned only by
stepping-stones. It ran full between its grassy banks, gurgling and
chuckling as it lapped the stones, a mirror for the fat white clouds
where it lay in still pools.
In the shelter of a boulder, a lad crouched over a fire, coaxing it with
bits of paper and handfuls of dry leaves. Just as the flames shot up, the
dog barked cheerily, and the lad turned to welcome him. His eye fell on
Caroline; amazement and real pleasure grew into a delighted laugh.
"Well, if you don't beat the Dutch!" he cried. "How'd you get here?"
"I came in the wagon with the egg-and-chicken man," said she happily,
"and then I walked 'cross lots. William Thayer knew me just as well!"
"'Course he did. He always knows his friends. Now, see here. You can
stay and watch this fire, an' I'll go over there a ways where those men
are buildin' a fence; I'll bet they'll give us something. You look after the
fire an' put on these old pieces of rail; it was hard work gettin' dry stuff
to-day. We won't be long."
They disappeared between the trees, and Caroline sat in proud
responsibility before the delightful little fire. The minutes slipped by;
from time to time she fed the blaze with bits of bent twigs, and at the
proper moment, with a thrill of anxiety, she laid two pieces of the old
fence-rail crosswise on the top. There was a second of doubt, and then
they broke into little sharp tongues of flame. With a sigh of pleasure,
she turned from this success, and, opening the lunch-basket, laid the
napkin on the ground and methodically arranged four sandwiches, two
cookies, and an orange on it. Then, with her fat legs crossed before her,
she waited in silence. Between the sun at her back and the fire on her
face, she grew pleasantly drowsy; the sounds about her melted
imperceptibly to a soft, rhythmic drone; her head drooped forward....
"Hello, hello!"
She jumped and stared at the boy and the dog. For a moment she forgot.

Then she welcomed them heartily and listened proudly to his admiring
reception of her preparations.
"Well, William Thayer, will you look at that! How's this for a surprise?
And see what we've got." He balanced a tin pail carefully between the
two crossed sticks in the heart of the fire, and unfolded from a
newspaper two wedges of pumpkin-pie. In William Thayer's little
basket was a large piece of cheese.
"It's coffee 'n milk mixed together; they had bottles of it," he explained.
"William Thayer 'll take back the pail. Are you hungry?"
Caroline nodded.
"Awful," she stated briefly.
"Well, then," he said with satisfaction, "let's begin."
Caroline attacked a sandwich, with shining eyes, and when in another
minute the boy took from his pocket a tin ring that slipped miraculously
out of itself into a jointed cup, and dipped her a mug of hot coffee from
the bubbling pail, she realized with a pang of joy that this was, beyond
any question, the master moment of her life.
"I take this along," he explained, "so's when I go by, and they're
milking, I can have some warm. Anybody'd give me all I want if
William Thayer dances and drops dead for 'em. It tastes good early in
the morning, I tell you."
She sighed with pleasure. To drink warm milk in the cool, early dawn,
with the