“Oh, Roxy, what wonderful things happen to you!” exclaimed Jasmine admiringly. “Just think, finding the Yankee soldier, and being taken away from this ledge by a Confederate scout, and then riding to Sharpsburg with Union soldiers!” and Jasmine gave a little sigh. “Why do you s’pose, Roxy, so much happens to you?”
But Roxy shook her head soberly; she was thinking that none of her adventures had been very pleasant ones, excepting helping the Yankee soldier.
“I don’t know,” she replied, and as both the squirrels at that moment made a flying leap to Jasmine’s shoulder the little girl was too well entertained to ask any more questions; but Roxy wondered, as she often did, if her Yankee soldier had reached safety and if she would ever see him again.
The little Hinham girls thought the ledge a fine playhouse, and when Roxy opened the basket and spread the luncheon on a smooth rock near Dinah’s house they danced around it happily, singing the song they had sung on the day that Roxy had made her unexpected visit to the Hinham place:
“I heard fairy bells ringing—
And fairies were singing,
And dancing and bringing
Fairy honey to the one
Who wore the gold crown.”
Etta-Belle looked on in smiling delight, thinking to herself that the Confederate scouts had brought her good fortune when they brought Roxy to her cabin.
Before the girls had finished their luncheon they all noticed a huge bird circling about high over their heads.
“It’s an eagle,” said Roxy; and then Jasmine remembered that in the spring an eagle had swooped down and carried off a young lamb from a field near the Hinham house.
“Roland says the eagles have nests on mountain tops, and that they are the strongest and bravest birds in the world,” she added.
“He keeps coming nearer and nearer!” exclaimed Myrtle, as the huge bird circled in the air above them, his wide-spread wings seeming to cast a shadow over the sunny ledge.