Halfway towards the woods, Alec halted. “Wait a bit, Elizabeth,” he said, “and I’ll cut back to the house and get Norah to put us up some lunch.”
“All right,” Blue Bonnet agreed, sitting down in the long meadow-grass to wait. The three dogs had disappeared on an important chase, and she was left all alone. From where she sat there was nothing to be seen but open fields and blue sky; and these sent her thoughts homeward. She had been two weeks in Woodford. Looking back now, they seemed to have been rather long weeks. She had spent so much of them indoors, and there had been so many things to be done, to be learned.
Lying on her back in the tall grass, Blue Bonnet tried to imagine herself back on the prairie. She forgot that she hated the prairie. Oh, but it was good to be out in the open air and sunshine, doing nothing, wanting nothing, caring for nothing!
Alec’s halloa brought her back to the present. He came up at a quick pace, a small covered basket in his hand. “Was I very long?” he asked.
“Long enough for me to get to Texas and back.”
“I’d like to have made the trip with you.”
Blue Bonnet had scrambled to her feet. “I think I shall come out here every day for a whole hour and do nothing,” she said.
“I do nothing every day at home—for more than an hour,” Alec answered. “It’s pretty slow work sometimes.”
They had reached the woods now, the brook a slender, noisy thread beside them. On and on they followed it; now on this side, now on that; talking, laughing, growing better acquainted every moment. Ahead of them, the three dogs raced and barked and behaved in the absurd, carefree way usual with puppies.
“Isn’t Solomon getting better-looking every day?” Blue Bonnet said.