One evening before it was quite dark, when supper was just ready at their father’s camp on the hill, Aida and Mo-ma had come over to stay all night. They were to have their even-song, with the organ, violin, and guitar, and the sweet human sympathetic voices of all in unison. The songs which Edwy was sure “could be heard by the birds in their nests high up in the tall trees, that leaned over the camp roof.”
They had just heard Willard and his father, fastening their boat at the foot of the hill, and now they, “the truants,” were running quickly up the stone steps from the landing, when Willard, the first comer, opened the door and thrust some object inside.
It was none other than Zephyr!
“While we were passing your dock, we saw Zephyr waiting all alone on the bank. We called to her, and she came running down and we took her right into the boat with us, and here she is!”
“You precious darling,” said Edwy, stroking her.
As supper was now ready, he took her in his lap, and, contrary to all rules, he fed her, as the poet Maeterlinck used to do with his pet cat, talking to her in his happy voice in his own place at the table.
The evening had grown cool enough to have a fire of apple-tree wood, blazing before the broad hearth, so before they began their even-song, Willard had laid the moss-covered logs together and lighted them, removing first the dainty fender, which his own hands had made, with artistic deftness; having woven in the name of their camp among the interstices of the woven wire. Now, where the welcome fire-glow shone through it on the hearth-rug. Zephyr had taken her position, quite at home and happy; purring her “grey thrums,” louder than ever, in her contentment.
CHAPTER V
THE REAL MEANING OF CHRISTMAS
It seemed now as if this second camp, where Zephyr lived, had new attractions for Edwy. He would spend the days happily with his friends.
Here was that teasable aunt Aida, and his friend, “Mo-ma”; his own little conceit to avoid the longer name, but then he had as many pet names for her, as there were months in the year. She never held up other boys to them as examples, for she always seemed to think that he and Willard were the “best ever.”