With this Mathilde stiffly rose and looked at the thickets between her and the little road which wound below. “Can you make it, do you think?” asked Peggy. “Take it on the bias, Mathilde. Don’t try to go straight down.”
“There isn’t any good trail, Peggy, but it’s no worse than some we’ve been through already. Going on yourself now?” Mathilde was thinking that she would not start first. They’d watch her go down, of course.
“Yes. We might as well.” Carolyn answered Mathilde, rising as she spoke, though without the effort which had characterized Mathilde’s movement. Carolyn had been in many trails that summer, though that was because of opportunity as well as because of her own volition. “Come on, Mathilde. I’ll go down half way with you. I know how hard it is to start after a body hasn’t been hiking. After I was sick a while last summer—a year ago, I mean, I thought I’d never get limbered up.”
“Thanks, Carolyn,” airily replied Mathilde. “I think I can go down hill, at least!” And off she started, to be tripped by a treacherous root and fall ignominiously, rolling into some bushes which checked further descent.
“Mercy, how she’ll hate that!” exclaimed Peggy, starting toward Mathilde with both Carolyn and Lucia.
Lucia reached Mathilde first and reached a hand to her as Mathilde, flushed and annoyed, sat up and brushed away leaves and dirt from hands and face. “No, I didn’t bruise my face at all,” she said in answer to Lucia’s question. “My foot caught in a trailing vine, I think. That’s what it felt like.”
“I’ll just go down with you,” said Lucia. “You need my old stock, Mathilde. It will swing us over bad places. Go ahead, girls, I’ll join you around the next hill. You said over there, didn’t you?” Lucia was pointing as she spoke.
“Yes, Lucia,” answered Carolyn, noting how Mathilde’s face brightened. “All right, you go down with Mathilde and see if some of the other girls are coming along. Don’t get lost yourself, though. We’ll saunter along and you won’t have much woods to get through over there.”
The girls watched Lucia and Mathilde as the light-footed Italian girl took Mathilde’s arm and with a laugh started down hill, instinctively choosing the easiest descent.
“This was a mean hill, Carolyn,” said Peggy, “but how Mathilde hates it not to appear ‘it’ in any way. Have you noticed how she’s really studying some and getting her lessons now?”