“Well, my goodness, if you’re not here,” said 70 Jud cheerily, coming up behind them. He pretended not to see the tears beginning to splash down Dot’s cheeks. “I’m going down to the brook to mend the line fence, and I thought if you wanted to come along and play in the water–––”
They did, of course. Dot slipped her hand into Jud’s and the others followed, talking busily. What was a line fence? How could he fix it? What could they play in the water?
Jud didn’t mind questions at all. Indeed, he rather enjoyed answering them.
“You see, this fence goes along the brook right in the center,” he explained carefully, “to show where your Aunt Polly’s land stops and Mr. Simmond’s land begins. If we didn’t have a fence there his cattle would walk right through the brook and up into our meadows. Say, build a raft, why don’t you? I always did when I was a kid. Here, I’ll show you.”
Jud in a few minutes had shown Bobby how to make a little raft, and he and Twaddles finished it while Meg and Dot ran up to the house to get some toys to sail on it. For a raft, you 71 know if you have ever made one, is no fun at all unless it has a cargo.
“We brought Geraldine!” cried Dot, running back, out of breath, with her best doll. “And now I wish I’d brought her trunk. But here’s Meg’s ‘Black Beauty’ book. She says we can play that’s a trunk. It’s heavy. And Meg is bringing your airplane, Bobby, and the singing bird for Twaddles.”
The singing bird was a little toy one of the neighbors in Oak Hill had given Twaddles. It had come from abroad, and he was very proud of it. It was a tiny yellow wooden bird that wound up with a key and sang three tunes for all the world like a music box.
Bobby fixed the string, and the children arranged the toys on the raft, the smiling Geraldine occupying the place of honor in the center and leaning gracefully against the book which served her as a prop.
“Look, Jud!” shouted Bobby. “See it float!”
Jud, in the middle of the stream, waved his hand encouragingly.