“Why, Miss, it’s like this here; they wait till there’s a high wind a-blowin’, and then they throws a lot of high hats up into the air and try to catch ‘em as they’re flying about. It’s wonderful, Miss, how them hats do dodge you, to be sure. I suppose now, Miss, you’ve never tried to catch a hat when it’s a-blowin’ about, have you?”
“Oh yes, I have,” said Girlie. “My own blew off the other day, and I had to run a very long way before I could catch it. It would be very easy to catch this one, though,” she said, looking out on to the lawn where the hat was lying quite still just outside the door.
“Not so easy as you think, Miss,” said the Gardener; “you just try.”
Girlie opened the door and stepped out, and was just going to pick up the hat, when it started rolling off again. “Bother!” she said, running after it.
“You’d better take this rake with you, Miss, if you want to catch it,” called out the Gardener, who was watching her from the door.
“SHE COULD HEAR THE OLD GARDENER LAUGHING LOUDLY AT HER.”
Girlie ran back for the rake and then hurried after the hat, which had stopped under a rose bush. “I’ve got it this time,” she thought when she came up to it; but, just when she stretched out her hand to take hold of it, a sudden gust of wind blew it up into the air again, and it went sailing merrily off in a most provoking manner. Girlie made two or three ineffectual dabs at it with the rake, but could not reach it—she could hear the old Gardener laughing loudly at her while he watched her from the conservatory door, and it made her determined to catch the hat, if she possibly could. By-and-by it settled down on the top of a low yew hedge at the end of the lawn, and Girlie hurried after it, grasping her rake firmly in her hand. When she reached the hedge she struck out at it rather crossly with the rake, only to see it go flying off into the meadow beyond, while a voice on the other side of the hedge called out in an indignant manner,—
“I say there, pray be careful what you’re about; do you know that you very nearly had my head off?”
“I’m sure I’m very sorry,” said Girlie, peeping through the hedge and trying to see who was speaking to her. She could see nobody, however, so she ran to a little gate which she could see in the hedge, and then walked slowly back on the other side to where the voice had proceeded from.