And now she was beckoning them into the dwelling, having moved a little away from them. She was balancing herself in elfin lightness on one toe, and smiling in warm gratefulness, the sun all blue and gold behind her.
She had always seemed an elfin and mischievous child.
"What can it mean, Ned?"
White-lipped, Ned shook his head. "I—I don't know! We'd better go inside!"
Helen Sweeney, her white-streaked auburn hair damp with steam vapor, sent a frying pan crashing to the floor as she turned from the stove with a startled cry.
"Ned! Cynthia! Why, land sakes, it seems only yesterday—"
Ned had a good look at her face. The eyes were the same, good-humored and kindly and wise; and if she had been forty a decade before she seemed now to be forcing herself back into an earlier instant of time—the very evening of that last well-remembered birthday party, with the candles all bright and gleaming, and the children refusing to admit that she could ever be middle-aged.
Old Clifton came in from his workshop out in back. He'd been whittling away at a rocket-ship model, and he still held it firmly in the crook of his arm, his eyes puckered in dust bowl grief. Like most men of the soil, Clifton had difficulty with his whittling when he turned his skill to rocketships.
The grief vanished when he saw Ned and Cynthia. Pure delight took hold of him, bringing a quick smile of welcome to his lips.
"Back so soon? Seems only yesterday you folks went away!"