My heart sank. I sat down on the top step. Wanza seated herself on the piazza railing. “Quiet here, isn’t it?” she said musingly. “I think I’d like living here. It’s wild and free. Why, the village just seems to cramp me sometimes! What’s that funny bird making that screeching noise, Mr. Dale? And where is he?”
“In the pine tree yonder. High up on one of the topmost branches. That’s our western wood pewee, Wanza. Listen and you will hear the true pewee note. He gives it occasionally. But his customary note is a very strident unlovely one, almost like the cry a hawk makes—there! He is giving his pewee call, now.”
We sat very still, listening. “Pewee, Pewee,” the bird gave its sad, plaintive cry, repeatedly.
Presently I said: “So even as unconventional a place as Roselake village makes you restless, does it, Wanza?”
“I should say so. It’s the people—and—and church!”
“Church!”
She met my eyes somberly. “Going to church almost kills me. It does, honest. Hats do, too.”
“Hats!”
“Thinking about ’em. Seeing ’em on other people—in front of you—at church—knowing they can’t afford ’em—but wishing you’d skimped Dad a little more on his white sugar and got a better one.”
I laughed outright. Her eyes continued to meet mine broodingly.