Joanne gave a little sigh as she said: “It was a great day, for I met the queen of women, the heroine of my dreams, but I’m afraid I shall never, never see her again.”
Her grandfather smiled. “Such a sentimental puss! You don’t seem to be the same girl as that one who went dashing down the cliff on Chico.”
Joanne laughed. “Win says I am more kinds of a girl than any one she knows; that most people have dual natures but that mine is polygonal.”
Her grandfather laughed, too. “I hope she doesn’t mean that you have many angles.”
“Oh, no, I should hope not, too; she means I am many-sided, and I suppose I am.”
“Don’t try to analyze yourself too closely, my dear. Just try to do what is right and leave the dissection of your character to some one else.”
“But one has to think about one’s self sometimes, don’t they?”
“Of course, so far as to question whether you are doing right or not, but to go too far in self-examination leads to morbidness, which isn’t a good thing. I think I’ll turn off here and go down to see Pablo and Unc’ Aaron. You run along to the lodge and I’ll see you there later.”
Joanne obeyed while her grandfather walked on saying to himself: “The child has been too much with grown people. The best thing that could have happened to her is this association with girls of her own age, boys too, for that matter. As for the Girl Scout idea, well, it is the greatest thing out.”
Joanne, meanwhile, went on to the meadow, which she found deserted except by Mr. Clover’s cows which had been turned out after the milking hour. From farther on came sounds of applause, laughter, music. Joanne hurried ahead to come upon a merry crowd gathered in front of the lodge. The boys were still there in force, the girls, too, but added to these were Pablo and Unc’ Aaron. The latter was nimbly dancing a breakdown to the music of Jimmy Carey’s banjo. At every new exhibition of agility, at each wonderful step the applause broke forth, which excited the old darkey to greater feats, until he stopped from sheer exhaustion, just as Joanne reached the spot.