“Call him off! I’ll carry the child. Which is the way home?”
“I don’t—know. It all looks alike—but not like—I mean, I haven’t the least idea where we are, except that it must be a good ways from the boat. Don’t you really know, either?”
For a moment Gerald looked about. Then answered frankly:
“No. I was pretty cross when I came out, for Melvin had just told me about that lost money and about Dorothy’s paying for me—So horrid, that! I heard a bird whistle and whistling’s my gift, some folks think. I’ve whistled for entertainments at school and I like to learn new notes. Following that wretched bird I didn’t notice.”
“And looking for a walking-fern I didn’t either. But we can’t stop here. We must go on—some way.”
“Let’s try the children’s way: ‘My—mother—told—me—this!’”
Elsa laughed. She had known so little of childish things that each new one delighted her. Gerald had uttered the few words, turning from point to point with each, and now finishing with an outstretched forefinger in a direction where the trees were less thick and crowding than elsewhere.
Fortunately, “his—mother—had—told—him” the right one. This was almost the end of the forest behind Corny Stillwell’s cabin; a short-cut to the long way around by which Gerald had gone to Deer-Copse. He didn’t know that when he lifted Saint Augustine in his arms and started forward. The child was small and thin, else Gerald would have had to pause oftener than he did for rest; but even so it was a severe task he had set himself.
But somehow the burden in his arms seemed to lift the burden from his heart, as is always the case when one unselfishly helps another. Also, he feared that the illness of Saint Augustine was the result of his own; so that when Elsa once limped up to where he had paused to rest and asked: