“K-K-K-K-K-K-Kiss-S-S-S-S-S-S Me!”
The men burst into roars of laughter. Lulu looked from one face to the other in perplexity. In perplexity, the other women looked from her to them and at each other.
“Sounds like the Yale yell!” Pete commented.
“But what I can’t understand,” Billy said, reverting to his thesis, “is that they don’t realize instantly that we wouldn’t hurt them for any thing—that that’s a thing a fellow couldn’t do.”
C.
Twilight on Angel Island.
The stars were beginning to shoot tiny white, five-pointed flames through the purple sky. The fireflies were beginning to cut long arcs of gold in the sooty dusk. The waves were coming up the low-tide beach with a long roar and retreating with a faint hiss. Afterwards floated on the air the music of the shingle, hundreds of pebbles pattering with liquid footsteps down the sand. Peals of laughter, the continuous bass roar of the men, an occasional uncertain soprano lilting of the women, came from the group. The girls were reciting their lessons.
“Three little girls from school are we, Pert as schoolgirls well can be,
Filled to the brim with girlish glee, Three little maids from school!”
intoned Lulu, Chiquita, and Clara together.
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
Silver bells and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.”
said Peachy.
“The hounds of spring are on winter’s traces,” began Julia. With no effort of the memory, with a faultless enunciation, a natural feeling for rhythm and apparently with comprehension, she, recited the Atalanta chorus.