“I’d give up anything!” Ralph’s eyes flashed; David was amazed at the glint through their softness. “I should like to go to Harvard, of course, but if it’s wise for me to go to an art school instead, I shouldn’t hesitate. Not for a minute.”
“Did you get Ruth to sit for that portrait?”
“Yes. No; that is, she asked me to do a sketch of her. Tom Windsor had been telling her about some drawings I’d made of fellows, and she gave me this chance.”
David looked at the picture again admiringly. Though Ralph was just a boy, he had somehow caught the whimsical, appealing expression that played about Ruth’s lips and the merry look of her eyes.
“That’s all I’ve got to show you,” Ralph said and began to put away his work. “It’s too fine a day to sit indoors.”
They went for a walk past the old mill and then out to the wood road that led to the lake. It was a warm and sunny afternoon in June, with a light wind that set the long grass of the meadows streaming, the gold of the dandelions glittering, and the tender green leaves of the young birches dancing; in the meadows chirped robin and blackbird; among the birches and the pine trees song sparrows and thrushes were singing; down through the forest, melody and sunlight showered together, and the ground exhaled the fragrance of moss and fern and violet—all the moist odors of the spring.
There was the flash of a bird overhead across the shadowed path, and then from a copse near by came a plaintive fluting call.
“A veery,” said Ralph.
“Well!” exclaimed David, “I don’t know a veery from a vireo. And you didn’t either a year ago.”
“I’ve got interested in birds this spring. Tom Windsor is a shark on them, and so is Mr. Randolph. I’ve gone out with them a good deal. Anything that has color I like to know about and watch.”