At first he thought she was the finest pal a boy ever had, and then he thought how he meant to work to earn and keep her friendship; and then, as the fire reddened Linda’s cheeks and she made running comments while she deftly turned her skewers of brigand beefsteak, food that half the Boy Scouts in the country had been eating for four years, there came an idea with which he dallied until it grew into a luring vision.
“Linda,” he asked suddenly, “do you know that one of these days you’re going to be a beautiful woman?”
Linda turned her skewers with intense absorption. At first he almost thought she had not heard him, but at last she said quietly: “Do you really think that is possible, Donald?”
“You’re lovely right now!” answered the boy promptly.
“For goodness’ sake, have an eye single to your record for truth and veracity,” said Linda. “Doesn’t this begin to smell zippy?”
“It certainly does,” said Donald. “It’s making me ravenous. But honest, Linda, you are a pretty girl.”
“Honest, your foot!” said Linda scornfully. “I am not a pretty girl. I am lean and bony and I’ve got a beak where I should have a nose. Speaking of pretty girls, my sister, Eileen, is a pretty girl. She is a downright beautiful girl.”
“Yes,” said Donald, “she is, but she can’t hold a candle to you. How did she look when she was your age?”
“I can’t remember Eileen,” said Linda, “when she was not exquisitely dressed and thinking more about taking care of her shoes than anything else in the world. I can’t remember her when she was not curled, and even when she was a tiny thing Mother put a dust of powder on her nose. She said her skin was so delicate that it could not bear the sun. She never could run or play or motor much or do anything, because she has always had to be saved for the sole purpose of being exquisitely beautiful. Talk about lilies of the field, that’s what Eileen is! She is an improvement on the original lily of the field—she’s a lily of the drawing room. Me, now, I’m more of a Joshua tree.”
Donald Whiting laughed, as Linda intended that he should.