“I haven’t climbed a tree since I was married. I used to be very fond of it when I was a girl,” she said, looking well-pleased with her shady perch.
“Now, you read if you want to, and I’ll take care of Teddy,” proposed Dan, beginning to make a fishing-rod for impatient Baby.
“I don’t think I care about it now. What were you and Demi at up here?” asked Mrs. Jo, thinking, from the sober look in Dan’s face, that he had something on his mind.
“Oh! we were talking. I’d been telling him about leaves and things, and he was telling me some of his queer plays. Now, then, Major, fish away;” and Dan finished off his work by putting a big blue fly on the bent pin which hung at the end of the cord he had tied to the willow-rod.
Teddy leaned down from the tree, and was soon wrapt up in watching for the fish which he felt sure would come. Dan held him by his little petticoats, lest he should take a “header” into the brook, and Mrs. Jo soon won him to talk by doing so herself.
“I am so glad you told Demi about ‘leaves and things;’ it is just what he needs; and I wish you would teach him, and take him to walk with you.”
“I’d like to, he is so bright; but—”
“But what?”
“I didn’t think you’d trust me.”
“Why not?”