Are with ‘Wo-he-lo!’ ringing!”
broke forth the marching chorus again, tiding them over that snaky, brown hill and the next—landing them in the lap of luncheon—luncheon by a mountain brook—with a deer crashing in the bushes near by—and a black-throated warbler singing from a bush: “Oh! ’tis sweet here—’tis sweet here,” as a naturalist has translated his song.
“We’ll postpone lighting a fire and cooking a real meal until this evening,” said the Guardian, “when our first day’s ten-mile hike triumphantly accomplished, we hope to strike the Long Trail running from end to end of the Green Mountains.”
“But we only follow that for a short distance,” said Frances, “for five miles or so.”
“Just the listening radius of my ring!” Miser-like, Pemrose glanced at her pack, shrined in whose heart lay the jewel more wonderful than any boon fairy had ever bestowed, jealously sheathed, lest one homesick tear or the tiniest raindrop falling upon the new crystal should mar its magic.
“Perhaps we may come in on a concert with it to-night,” said Terry Ross, Assistant Guardian, baptized Theresa, ardently. “I’m just—dying—to ‘listen in’ on that ring!”
“No radio concerts until we reach Mount Pocohosette—our camp on the sidehill—at the end of our four days’ hike,” was Pemrose’s answer. “Una and I did pick up a little faint, faint singing with it once, but ... where is Una now?”
“Off searching for an evening primrose near that fence corner,” said Robin Drew, a bright-eyed girl. “She wants to find one all ‘tuggled’ up, to sleep, as she says. She can tell you the exact hour at which every wild flower opens and closes—those that do. Oh-h! I never knew a girl whose brain was such a flower basket.”
“I fancy her father hopes to find a little ‘sand’ among the flowers when he gets back.” Pemrose dimpled slyly. “There, I didn’t mean to be slangy,” with a sidelong, blue glance at the Guardian.
“Her father! Oh! think of what he’s doing for us, that camp on the sidehill, radio—horses—Revel and Revelation ... in more than horseflesh, too!” It was a general ecstatic outburst that creamed the cake and seasoned sandwiches—made the brook water effervescent. “Oh-h—to reach Mount Pocohosette—that horse farm in the bottom-lands!”