“A wolf! A wolf!” cried the voice of Colin. “Help! Help!”
Stock still stood the frightened children. Again the cry came. At once there was a stir in the line, and a babel of excited voices broke forth as Jeanne D’Arc was seen running pell-mell into the forest in the direction from which the voice of her playmate came.
Colin was standing in the midst of a blackthorn thicket when she reached him. There was no sign of wolf, or animal of any kind, and he burst into a peal of laughter as the little girl glanced about in amazement. As the sound of his mirth reached the waiting children they too, knowing from it that naught was amiss, ran into the wood. The mischievous boy doubled up, and rocked to and fro in glee.
“Oh, but you were well fooled,” he cried. “Look at Jeanne’s face. You were afraid. All but her, and what could she have done to help me an there had been a wolf?”
“She could have done all that you deserve to have done, Colin,” retorted Pierre, who was a manly little lad. “Shame upon you for crying out when there was naught to cry for. ’Twould serve you right should a real wolf set upon you. Your mother shall know how you sought to frighten us.”
“’Twas but in sport,” muttered Colin, somewhat crestfallen. He had thought that the jest would be treated as great fun, and now here they stood regarding him reproachfully. “’Twas but in sport,” he said again, but there was no answering smile on any of the faces around him. The matter was of too serious a nature to admit of jesting.
THE GOOSEBERRY SPRING