“Hit's”—she paused for correction with her lips drawn severely in for precision—“IT'S a mountain poppy. Pap says it kills goslings”—her eyes danced, for she was in a merry mood that day, and she put both hands behind her—“if you air any kin to a goose, you better drap it.”
“That's a good one,” laughed Hale, “but it's so lovely I'll take the risk. I won't drop it.”
“Drop it,” caught June with a quick upward look, and then to fix the word in her memory she repeated—“drop it, drop it, DROP it!”
“Got it now, June?”
“Uh-huh.”
It was then that a woodthrush voiced the crowning joy of spring, and with slowly filling eyes she asked its name.
“That bird,” she said slowly and with a breaking voice, “sung just that-a-way the mornin' my sister died.”
She turned to him with a wondering smile.
“Somehow it don't make me so miserable, like it useter.” Her smile passed while she looked, she caught both hands to her heaving breast and a wild intensity burned suddenly in her eyes.
“Why, June!”