“This is a fat king, out for a ride,
This is a fair queen, close by his side.
This a tall soldier on guard with his gun;
This a fine lady who walks in the sun.
This is a baby curled up in his bed,
Here go all of them over your head!”
Jason and Mahala laughed together with gleeful shouts from the baby.
As she lifted her head to push back her hair, Mahala glanced down the road and a flicker of white slowly coming beside the river caught her attention. She said nothing, but she kept watching, and after a time she recognized a tottering figure, bowed and stumbling along slowly.
The penetrant sun of spring was beating mercilessly upon Martin Moreland’s old white head. When Jason realized who the traveller was, he drew back repulsed, but Mahala arose, and as Martin Moreland came past the odorous lilacs and across the grass toward them, she motioned him to a seat. He refused to be seated, but he drew himself together the best he could and made her a courtly bow.
In a wavering voice he said to her: “Beautiful little lady, you seem strangely familiar to me, yet I do not recall your name.”