From Totherside came the clang of the school bell.
“I wonder what she meant. I wonder why she wished that school—I wonder why she wishes Simpson——”
Suddenly he flung the squirrels from him, and, bending forward, gazed with hard eyes toward the white schoolhouse clinging to the hill.
“If he thinks harm to her, then God curse him,” he breathed, “and help me to kill him.”
A wee hedge-sparrow, drunk with the hazy Indian summer sunshine, perched itself on a branch above his head and poured out the simple little song that he had always loved above all other songs of wood-birds, because it was always the first song in new spring; the last in dreary fall. The little singer was about to leave the wood wherein he had nested and enjoyed a season’s happiness. He was about to fly far south, and was trilling a promise to Boy to come back again another springtime. And Boy listened to the simple song and wondered at the gladness in it. Nothing of the deep unrest of his own soul was there,—only the gladness of a heart brimful of God’s deep joy. Boy sat down on a log and watched the bird.
“Little chap,” he murmured, “you’ve got a long ways to fly. I guess I know you about as well as anybody could know you, unless it’s Daft Davie, who’s wild like yourself, and I can’t understand why you should be glad when you’re leavin’ all this——”
He looked about him. “—All this big nestin’-place. The great woods has been mighty good to you, little feller—mighty good. There’s a nest you built here, and you’ve got to leave it behind.”
A shadow floated across the hazy sunlight and a cold wind swept in from the bay. With a last sweet note of good-by the bird sprang to wing, and beating skyward high above the trees, faded, a little darting speck in the somber clouds rolling up in the south. Boy watched it until its tiny gray body was lost against the sky’s gray fringe. Then he sighed, picked up the squirrels, and proceeded to strip them, deftly, of their glossy coats. This done, he washed them carefully and carried them to the house. Gloss was standing by the table in the kitchen and spoke to him as he entered.
He answered her almost rudely and strode outside. The hazy light of morning had vanished. The skies had darkened, and a low wind was shaking the dead leaves from the trees. Boy plunged down the path and into the wood. A shaggy dog, snoozing beside the ash-leach, watched him furtively from half-closed eyes. When Boy’s figure disappeared behind the slope the dog arose, shook himself, and with stiffened muscles trailed his master stealthily.
Deep into the woods, Boy paused before a small grove of baby maples. Beneath their spreading branches stood a playhouse built of rough bark and twigs. He and Gloss had built this house; she, girl-like, to play at mimic life therein; he, boy-like, that she might own her little joy. There stood the table, a basswood block, set for a feast, with broken bits of crockery and glass for dishes. It seemed but yesterday that he and Gloss had sat before that table and eaten an imaginary repast of earth’s luxuries from those broken dishes. It all seemed so poor, so lonely, and deserted now.