As I stood wonder-struck, debating what to do, I saw a commotion in the tree by which she stood, a scuttling form darted out on the branch nearest the girl's head, then leaped to her shoulder, where it sat and nibbled a nut, its tail a graceful gray plume. I think my mouth went agape; if it didn't, it should have, for here was magic.
The girl—or dryad, for I was beginning to doubt if she was real—paid no immediate heed to the squirrel, but went on droning her song and toiling patiently at the flowers. I stood and watched her, leaning on my staff, my erstwhile hunger forgotten. Would she vanish into air, or would she disappear in the cleft of an oak? I determined to see.
In a few moments her crown was in place. She put her hands down, but almost at once raised one of her arms, and gave a small, thin, twittering call. She stood like a statue, apparently waiting, then repeated the sound, varying it only by a quick rising inflection at the end. Like an echo an answer filtered sweetly out from the forest to one side, and I saw a streak of brown cleave the air of the glade, as a small wood bird, of a species unknown to me, dipped to the outstretched arm and perched upon the girl's wrist. There it sat, its pert little tail at a sharp angle, and its head cocked to one side very knowingly.
"Good Lord!" I burst forth, involuntarily, then bit my lip for a fool.
The charm was rudely broken; I had spoiled the tableau.
With a whisk of his tail the squirrel dropped to the girl's hip, jumped to the ground, and headed toward the thicker growth with frightened leaps. The bird vanished as the ball does from between the conjuror's fingers—it just went, but I did not see it go—and the girl turned with a quiet movement to see who the idiot was.
"I—beg your pardon!" I said, advancing several steps and taking off my cap. "That—er—I have never seen—you know—er—I'm really sorry I scared them off!"
She stood perfectly calm, her weight resting rather awkwardly upon one foot, her hands loosely clasped in front of her, as I made my stammering speech. I don't know why I should have been so confused, unless it was from her rare composure.
"They'll come back," she said, assuringly, and smiled.
I drew closer. I could not believe the evidence of my eyes. When I saw her joined hands I marveled; they were white, slender, smooth, entirely unmarked by toil. Now her face. It was fresh, sweet—not beautiful—and lighted by gray eyes, which brought a sensation to my spine. It was not a face I would have expected to meet in the Kentucky knob country. True, there was a superficial expression which reflected her environments, her associates, but this appeared to me even in that moment as a veil to be taken off, that the true nature might shine forth. Her voice was low, rich, and held a strangely haunting note which made for unrest in the heart of a man. She was totally wild; that I could not doubt. Illiterate, crude, a child of the locality, but when I first looked in her face, when I first heard her voice, I knew that I stood before one whom Fate had cheated. That she was not abashed, not even startled by the sudden appearance of a total stranger, I attributed rightly to her mode of life, which was untrammeled by convention, thoroughly natural, and free from the restraints artificiality begets.