To be sure, indeed, the nickum, his glance darting past her to Una, had gone by with a slight inclination of his bare head that was a stony bow.
To be sure, when one of the girls of his acquaintance questioned him about the view from the Devil’s Seat, there was a sort of creak in his voice as he answered:
“It’s–a–corker! You can see away off: far-rms, lakes, all the other mountains–Mount Greylock, too, in the distance! But–but it’s a cat’s-foot climb down–there!” breaking off breathlessly, as if feeling were making a cat’s-paw of him.
“Oh! you can really see Mount Greylock! As far away as that! Well! I’m going to try-y it, too,” ventured one of his girlish companions whose age was fourteen. “Summer and winter, I’ve done a lot of climbing, up here!”
“You try it! Any girl try sitting in the Devil’s Chair! Why! there isn’t a girl living who could do it,” crowed the gray-shouldered youth: and now his tones were lordly, as if he were picking himself up after an inner tumble.
“Hey! Is that so?” Pem–over-hearing–ground the words between her teeth.
| “Have you never heard of Camp Fire, What a shame! What a shame! If you’ve never heard of Camp Fire, You’re to blame! You’re to blame! Then don’t take a nap, For we’re on the map, Ready to prove it with s-snap!” |
She hissed the last word at the nickum’s back, as he halted at some distance with his companions.
“Una! I’m going to do it,” she panted. “I’m going to slide down that rock there, turn round and sit in the Chair–then draw myself up again, as he did. I’ve got on sneakers. I know I can! I’ve done some breakneck climbing with father–yes! and with my Camp Fire Group, too.”
“I–I’ll give you all my marshmallows that we brought with us to toast at an open fire, if you do!... Yes! and one of my two little thistle pins–pebble pins–that Andrew and his wife brought me from Scotland, when they went home last year, if you do.... Wasn’t he just hor-rid? He didn’t want to speak to us–to know us!”