But the joy of this night, crowning all other joys in the Walnut Valley, was in that sacred moment when Bug Buler walked slowly up to Marian Burleigh, sister to Vincent Burgess, lost love of Lloyd Fenneben's youth—slowly, and with big brown eyes glowing with a strange new love light, and, putting up both his chubby hands to her cheeks, he murmured softly:
“Is you my own mother? Then, I'll love you fornever.”
Meantime, on this last moonlit June night, Elinor and Vic were strolling down the new south cement walk, a favorite place for the young people now.
At the farther end, Vic said:
“Norrie, let's go down across the shallows to the west bluff again. Can you climb it, or shall we join the crowd down in the Kickapoo Corral?”
“I can climb where you can, Victor,” Elinor declared.
“Dennie will never want to come here again. Poor Dennie!”
Vic was helping Elinor across the shallows as he spoke. Up in the Corral a happy crowd of young people were finishing their last “picnic spread” for the year. Below the shallows the whirlpool was glistening all treacherously smooth and level under the moonbeams.
“Why 'poor Dennie,' Victor? Her father had nothing more for him, here, except disgrace. The tribute paid him at his funeral would have been forever withheld, if he had lived a day longer, and he died sure of Dennie's future.” Elinor spoke gently.
“Who told you all this, Elinor?” Victor asked.