On two occasions during the last summer at the district school, he—quite a big boy now—joins the older boys and girls under a large apple tree that grows near the schoolhouse, and plays a silly game, the principal feature of which consists in his having to choose some girl to kiss. As he knows very well whom he prefers, and has the courage to kiss her when his turn comes, that seems a most delightful game; and although he and other boys who were guilty of this proceeding are jeered at by the younger ones, the experience makes such an impression on him that he lies awake half the first night thinking about it.
But all too soon to him comes the end of schooldays and especially the charming companionship of this particular fair-haired girl. On the last day she asks him to write in her album, and he again indulges in rhyme and inscribes therein a melancholy verse, the tenor of which is a hope that she will see that his grave is kept green, as such an unhappy duty must, in the near future, devolve upon some one. She in turn writes him a farewell note of similar tone, and encloses a lock of her hair tied with a blue ribbon. He has planned to walk home with her when the last day ends, and perhaps participate in a more tender leave-taking, but she rides home with her parents, and so that sweet scheme is foiled. With a heavy heart he watches her out of sight and then, feeling that possibly he may never see her again, takes his books and turns away from the dear old brown schoolhouse for the last time. He locks the curl of hair and her note up in a tin box where he keeps his fish-hooks, and resumes his unending round of hard work and chores. His horizon has enlarged a good deal, for he is now twelve years old—but it does not yet include Liddy.
It is over a year before he sees her again, though once, when given a rainy half-day to fish in Ragged Brook, he, like a silly boy, deserts that enticing stream for an hour and cuts across lots near her home in hopes that he may see her again, but fails.
Then one summer day a surprise comes to him. Half a mile from his home, and in the direction his thoughts often turn, is a cedar pasture where blackberries grow in plenty, and here he is sent to pick them. It is here, and while unconscious what Fate has in store for him, that he suddenly hears a scream, and running toward him, down the path comes a girl in a short dress with a calico sun-bonnet flying behind her, until almost at his feet she stumbles and falls and there, sprawling on the grass, is—Liddy.
In an instant he is at her side, and how glad he is of the chance to help her up and soothe her fears no one but himself ever knows. She, too, has been picking berries, and has come suddenly upon a monster snake just gliding from a cedar bough almost over her head. When her fright subsides he at once hunts for and kills that reptile with far more satisfaction than he ever felt in killing one before. It is an ungrateful return, for although the boy knew it not, the snake has done him a greater kindness than he ever realized. Then when all danger is removed, how sweet it is to sit beside her in the shade and talk over schooldays while he looks into her tender blue eyes. And how glad he is to fill her pail with berries which he has picked, and when the sun is almost down how charming it is to walk home with her along the maple-shaded lane! He even hopes that he will see another snake so that he can kill that also, and show her how brave a boy is. But no more snakes come to his aid that day and only the gentlest of breezes rustles the spreading boughs that shade their pathway. When she thanks him at parting, a little look of gratitude makes her blue eyes seem more tender than ever to him and her voice sound like sweetest music.
His world has enlarged wonderfully now, for Liddy has entered into it.