"You'll get your shoe all full of sand, Les." He was scuffing it mechanically back and forth in the dust of the roadway.
"I don't care."
"I hate to have sand in my shoes."
But he laughed: "I don't know what it is not to."
Then he patted the bark of the choke-cherry tree and ran his palm up and down it, as though he were a lumberman and knew all about trees. And he gazed up at the tiny ripening berries. Suddenly he stopped patting the trunk and turned, leaning his back against it. He stood there, confused a little, tapping first one heel and then the other against a projecting root; for his exploring hand, as it chanced, had encountered a certain recently carved set of initials within a rude heart. All that was so long ago!
"What shall we do about the sticks?" asked Hilda. "Shall we have papa carry them down to the fire?"
"No, I'll carry them down. I'll come over and get them."
"But you're going to light Mr. O'Donnell through from Crystalia," she reminded him—then waited breathlessly.
He didn't disappoint her. "Please come along—won't you?"
"You mean when you go to light him?"