She smiled and held out her hand.
“I'm very glad to see you,” she said cordially. “Won't you—” She looked about for a chair, but he dropped on the grass at her feet.
“You've changed since we met last,” he remarked, biting into his cooky. She looked at his bronzed face and thick silvered hair and nodded thoughtfully.
“I was six years old then,” she said; “and you were one of the 'big boys'—you were fourteen.”
“That's a long while,” he suggested laughingly.
“It is thirty-six years,” she replied simply.
He winced. His associates were not accustomed to be so scrupulously accurate. It seemed indecently long ago. And yet there was a certain charm, now one faced it, a quaint halo of interest.
“You used to hand me water in a tin dipper,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes, that was for a reward, when I was good,” she said seriously. “I could hand the water to the big boys. I was very proud of it. You drank a great deal.”
He chuckled. “I was born thirsty,” he acknowledged. “By George, how it comes back! I can see it now, that school-house! Funny little red thing—remember how it looked? Big shelf around the sides for a desk, and another under that for the books? Bench all round the room to sit on, and we just whopped our legs over and faced round to recite? And carved—Lord! I don't believe there was an inch of the wood, all told, that was clear! I nearly cut my thumb off there, one day.”