"Who is he?"
"He told us his name but we've forgotten it."
"What does he look like?"
Descriptions varied:
"He's awfully strong," said the boy.
"He has shiny black hair and black eyes," said the littlest girl.
"He wears his coat off and his sleeves rolled up," said the biggest little girl, and she added, with the spontaneous poetry of childhood, "And his hands are beeootiful!"
"Where is he?"
"Down by the river."
Under the maples, lying in the tall grass at the foot of a steep bank which sloped to the stream, with children clambering all over him, was Fritz. He scrambled to his feet and came forward putting out his hand with that awkwardness of meeting after an absence which he never quite outgrew, but his eyes snapped with enjoyment at my astonishment.