Jeff sat down again, smiling nervously.
"Well, Miss Sadie, I was thinking of the cruellest thing in this cruel world."
"My! What's that?"
"Why do the innocent suffer for the sins o' the guilty?"
"You do fly the track." She paused, gazing first at Jeff's troubled face, and then at the scene about them. The enchantress, Spring, had touched all things with her magical fingers The time had come when
"Half of the world a bridegroom is,
And half of the world a bride."
Very soon--within a month at most--the creek which ran so joyfully to the great ocean yonder would have run altogether out of sight, leaving a parched and desolate watercourse in its place. The grass, now a vivid green, bespangled with brilliant poppies, would fade into premature age and ugliness. The trees would have assumed the dust- covered livery of summer. The birds would be mute.
Sadie shrugged, protestingly, her slender shoulders.
"Suppose we talk of something else this lovely day?"
But Jeff paid no attention. In a crude, boyish fashion he had come to a decision.