Bob heard and clutched Hertha's hand tight.
"I'm going on the road Monday," Dick added.
Bob only clutched the harder and tried to drag his friend across the street.
Realizing the need of strategy, Dick put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a dime. "Run over and get yourself a soda, sonny," he said; "I bet you know the way."
Bob's hesitation was short. "Sure," he replied after an infinitesimal wait, and dropping Hertha's hand dashed across the street. They saw him enter the friendly drug store and then, at Dick's earnest pleading, they walked back along the path that they had come.
It was a day for dreaming, for lightly putting the oar in the water to withdraw it again. On the soft wind, from the bushes, white and purple and golden, from the new buds of the resinous trees, came a fragrance, sweet and pungent. Rowing beside the west bank, the boat kept in shadow, but beyond this restful line of dimmed light the sun danced upon the water, the ripples streaming with silver and gold. The late blossoming trees still stood tall, dark, with naked limbs, but the drooping willow gleamed pale yellow, and the maples and elms were dropping their small blossoms to stand clothed in summer green. Robins called to one another across the lake, busy carrying bits of grass and twigs to make their nests. Her hat off, Hertha sat in the stern of the boat, sometimes trailing her hand in the water, her head bent as she watched the trickling drops, again sitting erect gazing among the trees and out to the sky beyond.
"Thinking about home?" Dick asked, and she nodded and smiled.
"Let's visit the garden," she suggested, when having rowed the length of the lake they returned to the landing.
There was a riot of flowers in the great stretches of the formal garden, but the girl leading, they made their way to the pansy beds. Deep, velvety purple blossoms nodded up at them; soft blues and lavenders, streaked with deeper blue and purple, touched plants of glowing yellow. Hertha bent and began to talk to the nodding heads as though they were children.
"They're more alive," she said to Dick, apologizing for her childishness, "than any flowers I know."