And everywhere romped the children. Sometimes they would throw themselves on to their stomachs and begin ambitiously digging in the sand toward water. Then they would leap and chase each other, or they would go about thrusting fallen faggots back into the fiery heart of the blaze.
The provision baskets stood hospitably open. In one might be discovered a wealth of cool, slippery frankfurters; in another heaps of split and buttered buns; in still another dill pickles, a pot of mustard. And of course there were always marshmallows. Some preferred marshmallows to frankfurters and some preferred frankfurters to marshmallows. But the majority ate ravenously of both alike, displaying little or no preference.
The eastern sky grew lighter and lighter. The trees stood out mysterious and very black against it.
"Look, look!" cried the children.
For the moon was rising now.
The young boys grew restive. Their stomachs were simply closed to the incursion of any more refreshment; it was a pity, no doubt, but full was full. The boys began enlarging their area of prowess. There was a great sand bluff inland a short way, where a rift in the hills cut a deep, barren gash across the face of the forest. The boys crept far up the bluff and then leapt out, down and down.
The east was luminous, and the great moon crept higher and higher. When the boys leapt, their bodies were silhouetted against her bright disc. They would appear out of the shadow of nothing, poise a moment, leap into space, disappear.
"Well," observed Barry, in some surprise, "I see you've brought a book along."
She had really forgotten the book was in her lap, as she sat huddled over it so miserably in the cottage living room after dinner. When she had gone out on to the porch afterward she had carried it with her automatically, and so had brought it all the way to the roast without thinking. Louise had a grimly whimsical feeling that she couldn't get away from the book. "If I'd only thrown it into the harbour this morning!" she thought. But to him she merely replied, a manufactured gaiety edging the words without lightening them: "Oh, yes—it's a book I picked up by chance." She handled it carelessly, and her quick glance shot to a distant group. Leslie was lying stretched out in the sand, his chin in his hands. He was looking up at Hilda, who appeared to be recounting something of great interest. Louise felt her face go hot with jealousy. "I—I don't know much about it," she went on, flapping the cover of the book listlessly back and forth. "It was recommended to me by some one who had read it."