When Roden returned from his investigations it was one of the great clock in the hall, and the sky like a vast blue banner overhead.
He went out on the “front porch,” and called to Herrick as he crossed “the yard,” with the little terrier at his heels. “Is there a good view from that hill just back of the house?” he asked.
“Mos’ people goes fyar crazy over it,” said Herrick. “Hit’s a right rough climb to the top. Want tuh go up? Faginia kin show you. O-o-o-o-o Faginia! Faginia!”
Virginia appeared, clad from throat to heels in a vast brown apron, her half-bare arms covered with flour, and her thick braids skewered across the top of her head with a big wooden knitting-needle.
“Makin’ bread?” said her father. “Well, yo’ kin get yo’ mammy to finish that. Mr. Roden here he wants to go trapeezing up to th’ top o’ Peter’s Mountain. I tole him you could show him.”
“All right,” she said, briefly; “but I kyarn’t walk: the Alderney heifer stepped on my foot this mornin’. I’ll ride if you like:” this last to Roden.
“By all means,” he said; “but if you do not mind, I had rather walk.”
“Of co’se,” she said, and disappeared again.
“The beauty of the question air,” said her sire, looking proudly after her, “that gyrl kin ride like a Injun.”