He felt like wriggling down into his collar, and looked away from her. Mona blushed, and if Peter had observed he would have seen her eyes sparkling.
"And I wish I had light hair, too—like yours," she added.
"I don't," he fought manfully. "Your hair is—prettier than your eyes. When I first saw you, there in the sun, I thought——"
"What did you think?" she asked with interest.
"I dunno. I dunno what I thought."
He was tremendously uncomfortable, and was glad the musical droning of the sawmill began just then. That was another thrill, the clean, high-pitched cutting of steel through wood. There is something chummy and companionable about the sound of a sawmill at work in the heart of a forest country. It is friendly even to a stranger and makes one feel at home, and when Mona and Peter came to the mill the half-dozen men there were going about their duties as if they were a pleasure instead of work. They were a happy lot. Peter could see that with his boyish eyes, and his heart responded quickly to the gladdening pulse of it.
Then Mona ran up quickly behind a man who was twisting a log with a long cant hook and tried to cover his eyes with her hands. In a moment the man had turned and had her up off the ground, tight in his arms. Mona kissed him, and Peter thought he had never seen the face of any man filled with a happiness like that which he saw in Pierre Gourdon's. And Mona, holding out her hand to Peter, said:
"This is my Uncle Pierre. Come and kiss him, Peter."
And there, with both the young folk in his arms, and the big, steel saw laughing and wailing in their ears, Pierre Gourdon, into whose heart God had put a passionate love for all children, kissed Peter. In thus welcoming the boy he drew him so close that for an instant Peter's face touched Mona's soft cheek, and so warm and sweet was it that through all the years that followed Peter never forgot that wonderful moment.