"Yes--yes! and if he had played Jack at a Pinch forty-eleven million times, I'd do it." Her eyes were flashing now like the sky-dots in the pool, forked by iridescent shadows. "So--so _here's_ where they have their camp," craning her neck for a glimpse of a log-cabin amid the spruces. "Stud said it was just across the lake from the girls'!"
After that--well! who could be interested in gnat-boats when they had just lit upon the ambush of a Puzzle; a puzzle that would only open in a pinch and shut up, like a Chinese ring-box, afterwards?
And, moreover, that woodland lurking-place was just a bare mile and a half across the Bowl from the floating barrel pier, decked, as it was built, by girls' hands, and from the great heart's-ease bungalow, now, too, in process of decoration for the gala time in the afternoon around the White Birch totem; and for the blissful, far-off event, drawing nearer with every shining moment, the brilliant piazza, dance in the evening!
"Her tunic is of silver, Her veil of green tree-hair, The woodland Princess donning Her pomp of summer wear.
White arms to heaven reaching, Shy buds that, tiptoe, meet The kiss of June's awaking, The season's hast'ning feet!
Oh, sure, a laugh is lisping In each uncurling leaf; The joy of June is thrilling Some sense to transport brief!
Sister of mine, White Birch Tree! That sense my own sets free, For in thy dim soul-stirrings My Father speaks to me."
It was Tanpa, with the sunburst upon her right breast, general symbol of the Camp Fire, and the birch tree in grace of green and silver embroidered above it upon emerald khaki, who read the verses which she had scribbled in the skiff's stern under cover of the general interest in water-snails, eggboats and "fresh-water sheep."
"Most beautiful of forest trees--the Lady of the Woods!" came the responsive hail from eighteen green-clad maidens, tiptoeing around the Silver Lady, the emerald tassels of their Tam-o'-shanters skipping in the June breeze that peeped under her fluttering veil, still tucked with buds, to kiss those white limbs lifted to the skies, with surely, some bud of conscious joy.
It was June! Upon the cliff-brow, above the lake, wild roses were budding, too; and the girls' cheeks painted themselves with their reflection--even as did the blushing minnows in the lake.