“I’ll be bound you have! What is it this time? Another aeroplane or a rainbow?”
“No, it is four laughs, look!”
The old man did look, and when he saw the wanderers, he hastened out to make them welcome. Never was there a more charming manner than his. No wonder the half-witted youth thought of the sunshine in connection with his smile.
He was tall and stalwart, with a long gray beard that could only be equalled by Santa Claus himself. His hair was silver white and his cheeks as rosy as a girl would like to have hers. His eyes were gray and so kind and twinkling that all fear of his being crazy was immediately dispelled from the minds of our young people.
“They thought they were lost but they were wrong—we uns found ’em.”
“Good work, Tom Tit! And now what are we to do with them?” he asked, although he did not wait to find out what his poor companion had in his befuddled mind but ushered them to the porch, where he made the girls comfortable in steamer chairs and let the boys find seats for themselves.
Their story was soon told and much was their amazement to learn that they were more than ten miles from Greendale.
“You must have been walking all day in the wrong direction. No wonder this poor little girl is limping. Now the first thing for us to do is to have something to eat.”
“Ahem!” from Skeeter.
The spring-keeper smiled.