“Well, say it quick. The girls are calling me to swing on the Maypole. ’Cause that’s one thing I can do without my crutches.”
“Well, in a minute. But, say. Sometimes I used to let you hoe in my garden, last summer. Remember?”
“Course. I helped you a lot.”
“Don’t know about that. But you might this year. That is, maybe. If we went partners, you see; and if the teacher didn’t get on to it; and if there was a medal give and you let me have it, ’cause I’m the one has the farm, course. What you say?”
“I say we couldn’t do such a thing without the teacher knowing and I wouldn’t if we could. And you’ll never get a medal, you’re too lazy. But you’re real gen’rous, too, and I’ll be so glad to help. Oh! I love it! I just feel’s if I could put my face right down on that crumbly ground and go to sleep. It’s so dear.”
“Huh! If you did I s’pose you’d get earwigs in your ears and—and angleworms, and—things. Maybe snakes. But I’ll let you,” concluded Jimmy, graciously.
Then they turned around and there was—what seemed to the beholders, a veritable small angel!
Mary Jane was so startled she dropped her crutches and, for an instant, quite forgot all about the baby. The apparition was clothed in white, so soft and fine and transparent that it seemed to enwrap her as a cloud; and above the cloud rose a face so lovely and so winning that it made Mary Jane’s heart almost stand still in ecstasy.
CHAPTER III
HOW THE PAIR MET
But when things cleared a little, it was only Bonny-Gay! and the Gray Gentleman was supporting Mary Jane without her crutches—though she didn’t realize that, at first. Afterward she was able to look up into his face and smile a welcome, because he and she were already quite close friends.