"No hurry," replied the Tramp. "Let him be; he's following his sign.
When he's ready, he'll come along. It's a lovely day."
They moved with the rhythm of a flock of happy birds across the field of yellow flowers, singing in chorus something or other about an "extra day." A hundred years flowed over them, or else a single instant. It mattered not. They took no heed, at any rate. It was so enormous that they lost themselves, and yet so tiny that they held it between a finger and a thumb. The important thing was—that they were getting warmer.
Then Judy suddenly nudged Tim, and Tim nudged Uncle Felix, and Uncle Felix dug his elbow into Come-Back Stumper, and Stumper somehow or other caught the attention of the Tramp—a sort of panting sound, half-whistle and half-gasp. They paused and looked behind them.
"He's ready," remarked their Leader, with a laughing chuckle in his beard. "He's coming on!"
WEEDEN, sure enough, had quietly shouldered his shovel and empty sack, and was making after them, singing as he came. Judy was on the point of saying to her brother, "Good thing Aunt Emily isn't here!" when she caught a look in his eyes that stopped her dead.
AUNT EMILY FINDS—HERSELF
VIII
"My dear!" he exclaimed in his tone of big discovery.
Judy made a movement like a swan that inspects the world behind its back. She tried to look everywhere at once. It seemed she did so.
"Gracious me!" she cried. She instinctively chose prohibited words. "My gracious me!"