"I saw enough. I saw your cheek and one ear and the color of your hair. Take care, playmate, you mustn't do that."
"What?"
"You mustn't say I hated you. You know it wasn't hate."
Some daring prompted her to ask, "What was it, then?" but she folded her hands and crossed her feet in great contentment and was still.
"Tell me things," she heard him saying.
"What things? About the house up there? About grannie? About Peter?"
"No, no. I know all about grannie and Peter. Tell me things I never could know unless we were here in the playhouse, in the dark."
Her mind went off, at that, to the wonder of it. She was here in strange circumstances, and of all the occurrences of her life, it seemed the most natural. Immediately she had the warmest curiosity, the desire that he should talk inordinately and tell her all the things he had done to-day, yesterday, all the days.
"You tell," she said. "Begin at the beginning, and tell me about your life."
"Why, playmate!" His voice had even a sorrowful reproach. "There's nothing in it. Nothing at all. I have only dug in the ground and made things grow."