"Then came from the depths, Webb. What secret sorrow can you have on a day like this?"
He laughed, but made no reply.
"Ah, listen!" she cried, "what bird is that? Oh, isn't it beautiful?—almost equal to the thrush's song. He seems to sing as if his notes were written for him in couplets." She spoke at intervals, looking toward the grove they had just left, and when the bird paused Webb replied:
"That is the wood-thrush's own cousin, and a distinguished member of the thrush family, the brown-thrasher. Well, Johnnie," he added, to the little girl who had come to meet them, "you are honored to-day. Three of our most noted minstrels have arrived just in time to furnish music for the May Queen."
But Johnnie was not surprised, only pleased, as Webb and others congratulated her. She would be queen that day with scarcely more self-consciousness than one of the flowers that decked her. It was the occasion, the carnival of spring, that occupied her thoughts, and, since the fairest blossoms of the season were to be gathered, why should not the finest birds be present also?
Feeling that he had lost an opportunity in the improvised festival of the maple-sugar grove, Burt resolved to make the most of this occasion, and he had the wisdom to decide upon a course that relieved Amy of not a little foreboding. He determined to show his devotion by thoughtful considerateness, by making the day so charming and satisfactory as to prove that he could be a companion after her own heart. And he succeeded fairly well for a time, only the girl's intuition divined his motive and guessed his sentiments. She was ever in fear that his restraint would give way. And yet she felt that she ought to reward him for what she mentally termed his "sensible behavior" and indicate that such should be his course in the future. But this was a delicate and difficult task. In spite of all the accumulated beauty of the season the day was less bright, less full of the restful, happy abandon of the previous one in March, when Webb had been her undemonstrative attendant. He, with Leonard, at that busy period found time to look in upon the revellers in the woods but once. Mr. Clifford spent more time with them, but the old gentleman was governed by his habit of promptness, and the time called for despatch.
For the children, however, it was a revel that left nothing to be desired. They had decided that it should be a congress of flowers, from the earliest that had bloomed to those now opening in the sunniest haunts. Alf, with one or two other adventurous boys, had climbed the northern face of old Storm King, and brought away the last hepaticas, fragrant clusters of arbutus, and dicentras, for "pattykers, arbuties, and Dutcher's breeches," as Ned called them, were favorites that could not be spared. On a sunny slope dogwood, well advanced, was found. There were banks white with the rue-anemone, and they were marked, that some of the little tuber-like roots might be taken up in the fall for forcing in the house. Myriads of violets gave a purple tinge to parts of a low meadow near, and chubby hands were stained with the last of the star-like bloodroot blossoms, many of which dropped white petals on their way to Johnnie's throne. Some brought handfuls of columbine from rocky nooks, and others the purple trillium, that is near of kin to Burroughs's white "wake-robin." There were so many Jacks-in-the-pulpit that one might fear a controversy, but the innumerable dandelions and dogtooth violets which carpeted the ground around the throne diffused so mellow a light that all the blossoms felt that they looked well and were amiable. But it would require pages even to mention all the flowers that were brought from gardens, orchards, meadows, groves, and rugged mountain slopes. Each delegation of blossoms and young tinted foliage was received by Amy, as mistress of ceremonies, and arranged in harmonious positions; while Johnnie, quite forgetful of her royalty, was as ready to help at anything as the humblest maid of honor. All the flowers were treated tenderly except the poor purple violets, and these were slaughtered by hundreds, for the projecting spur under the curved stem at the base of the flower enabled the boys to hook them together, and "fight roosters," as they termed it. Now and then some tough-stemmed violet would "hook-off" a dozen blue heads before losing its own, and it became the temporary hero. At last the little queen asserted her power by saying, with a sudden flash in her dark blue eyes, that she "wouldn't have any more fighting roosters. She didn't think it was nice."
By one o'clock the queen had been crowned, the lunch had met the capacity of even the boys, and the children, circling round the throne, were singing: "Oats, peas, beans, and barley grows," and kindred rhymes, their voices rising and falling with the breeze, the birds warbling an accompaniment. Webb and Leonard, at work in a field not far away, often paused to listen, the former never failing to catch Amy's clear notes as she sat on a rock, the gentle power behind the throne, that had maintained peace and good-will among all the little fractious subjects.
The day had grown almost sultry, and early in the afternoon there was a distant jar of thunder. Burt, who from a bed of dry leaves had been watching Amy, started up and saw that there was an ominous cloud in the west. She agreed with him that it would be prudent to return at once, for she was growing weary and depressed. Burt, with all his effort to be quietly and unobtrusively devoted, had never permitted her to become unconscious of his presence and feeling. Therefore her experience had been a divided one. She could not abandon herself to her hearty sympathy with the children and their pleasure, for he, by manner at least, ever insisted that she was a young lady, and the object of thoughts all too warm. Her nature was so fine that it was wounded and annoyed by an unwelcome admiration. She did not wish to think about it, but was not permitted to forget it. She had been genial, merry, yet guarded toward him all day, and now had begun to long for the rest and refuge of her own room. He felt that he had not made progress, and was also depressed, and he showed this so plainly on their way home that she was still more perplexed and troubled. "If he would only be sensible, and treat me as Webb does!" she exclaimed, as she threw herself on the lounge in her room, exhausted rather than exhilarated by the experience of the day.