And when the car stopped and let them off in a beautiful strip of country woodland, their voices came out louder and they went swinging along in the direction of the stream whose cool rippling music they were so eager to hear. They had to climb several fences, but they had been told that these woods were always open to school and college girls, for there was a larger college nearer than Andrews, and the girls haunted the place. There was nobody in sight to-day, however, and they scrambled to the top of gateways and then jumped down into each other’s arms, knocking each other down and laughing and shouting until the woods echoed with their noise.
The stream was broad and rather shallow and was rushing along over its little shining stones at a great rate. Now and then there was the silver flash of minnows or the sluggish shadow of swimming tadpoles. But, look as they would, they could not see the dreaded green-brown menace of a crab, so their happiness was complete.
There were smooth gleaming rocks rising high out of the water everywhere. Once this stream had been a powerful river and it had perhaps tumbled these rocks here and then worn them down to the delightful shininess they showed now. Fascinatingly enough they could walk out on them, stepping with care from one to another until they were in the middle of the stream, and then they could pursue their way upstream in the same exciting way for quite a distance. The girls were in all attitudes, wildly trying to keep their balance and make this fascinating journey at the same time, when there was a splash, a shout, and then a dripping figure emerged between two large rocks and held up its wet hands pitifully for help.
Under her wet hair and through the water streaming down her face, the girls recognized Peggy, much more slimpsy in her white dress than she had been a minute ago.
“First one in!” they greeted her catastrophe uproariously, and in delighted unanimity they sat down on the rocks wherever they happened to be and pulled off their shoes and stockings and turned up their skirts, and then sliding gracefully down, wriggled their contented toes in the water and shrieked as it encroached coldly on their ankles.
In a minute more they were all in, splashing and stamping, the stones smooth under their eager feet as they took each step.
They went on together up the stream farther and farther, following its twisted way until they came to a place they could not hope to climb—where the stream made a sheer leap downwards for a distance that was much greater than their height, and came plashing down toward them in a thousand rainbow lights by means of a spreading waterfall.
“I might as well stand under that,” chortled Peggy, “I am as shipwrecked as I can be already. I fell flat when I tumbled off the rock back there.”
“OH—O-OH,” she cried as she sidled up to the water and finally made her plunge into it. Pounding down and stinging like a hundred little sharp needles of cold, she had never felt such breathlessness nor such elation. Over her, and shrouding her in a gleaming mist, the water came, and the girls stood speechless watching her as she stood there like some Indian princess observing the rites of the waterfall.
This was the tableau she made when there came another group of shouts and laughing voices from over the bank of the river, and there all of a sudden looking down were a crowd of older girls, carrying luncheon boxes too, and at the moment opening their mouths and eyes wide in astonishment. At first the rest of the Andrews girls were so far back toward the bank that the newcomers did not see them, and all their gaze focused on Peggy and from their faces it was apparent that they scarcely thought her real. Her arms were upstretched toward the descending water and her face, mist-covered, was lifted. Her slim bare feet shone in the sunlight and sparkled through the water like the feet of some very young Diana, resting from the hunt.