Our suitcases were safe enough in the hollow tree, and I thought the spring wagon had been back already, for there were fresh tracks. This discouraged me and I sat down on a log to rest. It was then that I heard the girl crying.
She was crying softly, but in the woods sounds travel. I found her on her face on the pine needles about twenty yards away, wailing her heart out into a pink automobile veil, and she was so absorbed in her misery that I had to stoop and touch her before she looked up.
"Don't cry," I said. "If you are lost, I can direct you to a settlement."
She looked up at me, and from being very red and suffused she went quite pale. It seems that with my bare legs and sandals and my hair down, which was Tish's idea for making it come in thick and not gray, and what with my being sunburned and stained with berries, she thought I was a wild woman. I realized what was wrong.
"Don't be alarmed," I said somewhat grimly. "I'm rational enough; if I hop about instead of walking, it's because I'm the tomb of more rabbits than I care to remember, but aside from that I'm all right. Are you lost?"
She sat up, still staring, and wiped her eyes.
"No. I have a machine over there among the trees. Are there—are there plenty of rabbits in the woods?"
"Thousands." She was a pretty little thing, very young, and dressed in a white motor coat with white shoes and hat.
"And—and berries?"
"There aren't many berries," I admitted. "The birds eat 'em. We get the ones they don't fancy."