"Yes, she was well. She did not say anything about not coming."
"She'll be in then to-morrow, I reckon."
I had a guilty feeling. What if it spoiled the friendship? I wanted to go down at noon, but pride held me back. She was more than any political feeling—why for her sake I would have been Whig or anything.
I saw her in Sunday School and my heart gave a great bound. Hers was a girls' class across the room. She had on a white frock and a pretty white ruffled sunbonnet. The lesson dragged, the singing lost its melody, but at last came the benediction. The children loitered in little groups outside. I hung back, glad to talk to a boy about muskrat trapping. Ben went up to her boldly.
"Why didn't you come? We missed you so. Mother couldn't think what got yer."
"Got yer," she returned with a soft little laugh. "What kind of an animal is it?"
Ben's face was scarlet. We were used to the town vernacular, which was a conglomeration of Virginia, Kentucky, trapper and rough boatman's speech, as is often the case with immigrant tongue. She was dainty in all she did and said.
"Oh, you know what I mean," with a protesting boyish gesture. "Come home with us now. Even pop wondered what if you were sick."
"No—I was busy. I was trying to do—some things, and—"
I came around the other side, and gained courage enough to look in the sunbonnet. A tumultuous color hovered over the sweet face, the lips had fluttering curves, the long lashes glittered with the light shining through. I could not have put it in words, but it was one of the remembrances I set along side of my first glance of her. Her hand hung down by her side, a slim little hand, not much sunburned. She kept her fair complexion through wind and sun.