[CHAPTER VIII]
GRETTA
"Happie is beginning to be indeed happy, and without effort," said Miss Bradbury in high satisfaction as she watched her pretty namesake blossoming into increasing brightness every day. It was quite true that Happie was beginning to be happy without effort. The first symptom of her growing reconciliation with her new home was that the lively correspondence with the friends whom she had left behind was abating; she found the days too short for the delights that the farm had to offer her, and she had less and less time for letter writing.
Happie had found a new interest in life besides the many interests of her first country spring-time, and her growing intimacy with the wild creatures,—an interest not unlike the latter, but far more absorbing. And this is how it began.
One day she was walking alone down the roadside. The sun lay on her head as warm as if it were June, and the dust rose under her feet. Out of the tangled growth of the wayside came frequently the fluttering of wings, or a squirrel in vociferous haste, whisking his tail and scolding her.
She came up at last to the furthest boundary of the Ark farm, far down on the margin of the brook, and to the house nearest to the Ark. It interested her, because she had heard that in it lived a girl of her own age, together with two women who had the reputation of being decidedly cross, and of leading this young girl a hard life. They were her cousins, without whose dubious shelter the girl would have been homeless.
As Happie came up she caught a glimpse of a brownish sunbonnet, and paused to peer at her unknown neighbor, herself hidden by a friendly chestnut tree. She saw a pair of shoulders, unmistakably youthful, covered by a faded but scrupulously clean gingham, and a plump brown hand skilfully wielding a paint brush with which it was renewing the storm-beaten red paint on the posts which upheld the wire fence forming the farm boundary.
The girl stopped her work, and, with an upward movement of her arm, threw off her sunbonnet with the back of her left hand, and drew her arm across her warm brow. She had dark brown eyes, darker hair, and her skin was as brown as a berry, but beautifully clear, and her cheeks wore a flush as red as the tint of her red lips. She was so pretty that Happie caught her breath with the pleasure almost all girls feel in another girl's beauty, no matter what sarcasms are pronounced by boys to the contrary. There was a warmth, a charm about this girl that warm-hearted Happie was quick to feel, and with it a look of patience that went to her heart.
"She needs a friend," thought Happie, and went forward without a doubt in her mind that she could fill the want, not because she was conceited, but because her motives were too pure, and her impulse too kindly to allow a doubt of her reception.
"I think you must be Gretta Engel," she said, her sunny face wreathed in smiles, as she came up to the painter.