"Second the motion," murmured Billy, on her back in the grass, nibbling clover heads.
"No," Loraine said severely, "I refuse to be put into a by-law."
The summer days were long days—lazy, somnolent days. The four girls spent them each in her own separate way. Sometimes the little colony met only at mealtimes—with glowing reports of the mornings' or afternoons' wanderings.
Billy, it was noticed, although like the rest she wandered abroad, made no reports. Had she had a good time? Yes—yes, of course. Where had she been all the morning or all the afternoon? Oh—oh, to places. Woods? Yes—that is, almost woods. And more than that they failed to elicit. Nearly every day she started away by herself, and after awhile they noticed that she went in the same direction. She went briskly, alertly, like one with a definite end in view. Now, where did Billy go? Their vagrant curiosity was aroused, but not yet to the point of investigation.
Old '61 knew. Every morning since that first morning he had strained his dim old eyes to catch a glimpse of a little figure coming blithely up the road. On that first morning it had stopped in front of his little house and said pleasant things to him as he sat on the doorsteps. He remembered all the things.
"Good-morning! It's a splendid day, isn't it?"
And: "What a perfectly lovely place you live in! With the woods so near you can shake hands with them out of your windows!"
And: "Don't the birds wake you up mornings? I wonder what they sing about up here." Then she had glanced at his ancient army coat and added the Pleasantest Thing Of All: "I think they must sing Battle Hymns and Red, White and Blue songs and 'Marching Through Georgia,' don't they?"
"Not the last one," he had answered sadly. "They never sing that. If they did, I'd 'a' learnt it of 'em long ago."