The attention of her hearers was suddenly startled by an exclamation from Bert, who stood up, with both hands at her heart, in apparent agony. Recovering, however, with astonishing alacrity, she murmured: "Oh, it is nothing--nothing but a barbed arrow driven home."
And with this mysterious remark, she settled her hat, declared it was dinner-time, and, refusing to explain her unwonted reserve, laughingly tore herself away.
O pussies dear, It's very queer That you wear your fur coats all the year!
Mamma, in May, Put hers away. I should think you'd be too warm to play.
The kelp-gatherers, with their tip-cart and ox-team, had in the meanwhile entered the belt of woods which stretched along the coast, back from the sea. Tall trees rose on both sides of the narrow, sandy road, their tops meeting overhead. There was on the outskirts a scanty undergrowth, which, however, soon disappeared, leaving the open aisles of the forest, with here a brown carpet of pine-needles, and there a patch of bright moss.
The sun was going down. The spots and flickers of wine-colored light vanished from the boughs. The long bars of shadow, cast by the great trunks, became merged in one universal shade, and evening shut down upon the woods.
Soon another sound mingled with that of the wind sweeping through the pines and firs. It was the roar of the sea.
The boys were more quiet now, the solemn scene filling their hearts with quiet joy. The large trees soon gave place to a smaller and thicker growth of spruce and balsam, the boughs of which now and then touched the cart-wheels as they passed. Somewhere in the dim wilderness, a thrush piped his evening song.
"Hark!" said Perce. "I heard something besides a bird. Is somebody calling?"
"A loon out on the water," said Poke. "The sea is just off here."
They soon had glimpses of it through openings among the trees. But now the sound of it became louder; the woods, too, moaned like another sea in the wind, and the cries were no longer heard.
They came out upon a spot of low grassy ground behind the sand-hills. There was a fresh-water pool near by. Perce thought it a good place for the oxen; and he turned them out on the road-side. Mrs. Murcher's boarding-house was in sight.