“What's she crying for?” asked Moses Durfey, stolidly.
Aaron peered around at her shyly.
“She's scared to go home. I ain't, but I mote be 'fore I got there.”
“What's your name?”
“We-ell—”
He hesitated. Then, with loud defiance:
“It's Mr. and Mrs. Bees.”
A red squirrel clambered down a low-hanging branch overhead, and chattered sharply, scattering flakes of bark. Aaron, still holding Silvia's hand, leaned back on the bank and looked up. All lines of trouble faded quickly from his face. He smiled, so that his two front teeth stood out startlingly, and held up a long forefinger.
“Cherky little cuss, ain't he?”
The squirrel became more excited. Aaron's finger seemed to draw him like a loadstone. He slid down nearer and nearer, as far as the branch allowed, to a foot or two away, chattering his teeth fearfully. We knew that any one who could magnetize so flighty and malicious a person as a red squirrel, must be a magician, however simple he might be otherwise. Aaron snapped his finger and the squirrel fled. “We'd better be movin', Silvy.”