"I'm Cousin Burwell until we get home. No 's'pose,' you little goosie! If we did, we'd take to the woods, and outrun him. Or, we'd climb a tree."
We were in the highroad, striding the ruts and skipping over stones like two boys on the way home from school. There was pleasanter walking in bridle-paths and wood-roads branching off from the thoroughfare every few rods. I think the madcap chose the rutty and mud-holey route because there was, at least, a chance that we might have to plunge into the bushes to hide, or to brave the scrutiny of strangers and acquaintances. The sauce of danger made the escapade the more attractive.
Half a mile from home a creek, shallow, but broad, crossed the road. We could not pass over dry-shod and had to go up the bank into the low grounds to find a long log laid from side to side of a narrower part of the stream. My companion hoisted me upon her back and ran along the uncertain bridge as fleetly as a squirrel.
"How far are we going?" I asked, as she set me down.
"Around by Tom's Hill, and then cut across the field home. It's more than a mile. Can you walk so far?"
"I walked two miles at a time, once!" I boasted.
"You are a brave little lightwood knot!"
She was "fey"—exaltée—in the state of lighthearted-and lightheadedness for which sober, literal, decorous English has no synonym. As we went, she danced and sang, and laughed out joyously at everything and at nothing, and talked the most fascinating nonsense—all in the rôle of "Cousin Burwell." She could imitate him to perfection; her strut and swagger and slang threw me into paroxysms of delight. We picked huckleberries, and dived into the woods to feast upon wild plums that had ten drops of syrupy juice between tough skins and flinty stones encased in the pulp of bitterness, and gathered handfuls of wild flowers because their beauty tempted sight and touch, and with no intention of taking them home with us. Two of Pan's dryads turned loose for a holiday could not have sported more irrationally.
We met neither man nor beast until we had climbed Tom's Hill, a stony eminence from the top of which, as the neighbors were proud of saying, one could see six dwelling-houses, each with its group of outbuildings, representing six fine plantations. A saddle-horse was tied to a persimmon tree a hundred yards or so down the other side. He whinnied at sight of us, and Cousin Molly Belle ran up to him.
"Well done, Snap! old fellow! clothes don't make any difference to you—do they?"