The January morning had been mild, with melting snow. By midday the wind had shifted to the north, with a falling thermometer. By late afternoon the streets were coated with a glaze of ice. Tom could swagger down the slope of Grove Street easily enough in the security of rubber soles.
But not so a girl, whose slippers and high French heels made her helpless on the steep glare. Having ventured over the brow of the hill, she found herself held. A step into the air would have been as easy as another on this slippery descent. The best she could do was to sway in the keen wind, keeping her balance with the grace of one of the blue spruces which used to be blown about at Bere. Her outstretched arms waved up and down, as a blue spruce waves its branches. Coming abreast of her, Tom found her laughing to herself, but on seeing him she laughed frankly and aloud.
"Oh, catch me! I'm going to tumble! Ow-w-w!"
Tom snatched at one hand, while she caught him by the shoulder with the other.
"Saved! Wasn't it lucky that you came along? You're the Whitelaw boy, aren't you?"
Tom admitted that he was, though his new sensations, with this exquisite creature clinging to him like a drowning man to his rescuer, choked the monosyllable in his throat. Though he had often in a scrimmage protected little boys, he had never before been thrown into this comic, laughing tussle with a girl. It had the excuse for itself that she couldn't stand unless he held her up. He held her firmly, looking into her dancing eyes with his first emotional consciousness of a girl's prettiness.
His arm supporting her, she ventured on a step. "I'm Maisie Danker," she explained, while taking it. "I see you going in and out the house."
"I've never seen you."
"Perhaps you've seen me and not noticed me."
"I couldn't," he declared, with vehemence. "I've never seen you before in my life. If I had...."