“Maybe so, when you get it,” said Will, mysteriously. “Hope you don’t kalkerlate to pick up secrets that easy. There’s things it don’t do for everybody to know. Where is the gal?”
“She is down there in the wood,” said the servant.
Breaking into a gay ditty, Will hastened off toward the piece of woodland indicated by the woman.
The ground sloped downward from the back of the house into a wide depression that led off toward the Schuylkill. This was occupied by a piece of fine woodland, the trees growing straight and tall, while the undergrowth had been mostly removed, leaving long, green vistas.
The country was now arrayed in all its June-tide beauty, while flowers lent a rich charm to the fields, and the fresh green of spring arrayed every tree.
The old vagabond instinct rose in him as he sauntered on, now chasing a gorgeous butterfly, now following the flight of some swift bird, now stopping to listen to a trill of woodland music, now taking a wild roll in the grass.
His cap was soon adorned with daisies and buttercups; violets peeped from his button-holes, and he gathered a bouquet of yellow dandelions as if he thought them choice flowers.
“If this ain’t gay I don’t know beans!” he cried, exultingly. “Wouldn’t I like to live out here! Bet I’d go a-fishin’ every day, and a-swimmin’ every other. I’ll go a hoss there ain’t a tree in that woods I can’t climb. Got a notion to shin up some of them just for fun.”
But a frisking ground-squirrel took his attention, and drove out of his head the project of tree-climbing.
This fellow chased to his hole, other objects attracted Will’s delighted eyes, and led him step by step into the woods.
Finally, some sounds behind a thin screen of bushes attracted his notice. He drew carefully up and looked through. There on a flat stone, beside a flowing brook, sat a young lady, her lap full of wild flowers, which she was forming into a bouquet.
She seemed quite young, at furthest not more than eighteen, and was very beautiful as she sat there all unconscious of stranger’s eyes. She was tall and well formed, with a face of most classic outline--the general contour of the features not unlike Will’s own. But the cheek had a peachy bloom which his had long lost, and a gentle, womanly expression replaced his saucy independence.