"You lady-killers!"
"Dance, my darling, dance!"
"Squeeze her tight, Bill!"
"That's the way!"
"Look at Skinny!"
"Keep a-hoppin', Skinny!"
"Look at him spin!"
"For heaven's sake, someone stop Skinny!"
Of evenings certain of the boys would wander in pairs to the edge of the woods and confide to each other the secret attachments and dark, forlorn hopes that were wasting them away. Turkey and the Kid, who were going as stags, opened their hearts to each other and spoke of the girl, the one distant girl, whose image not all the fair faces that would come could for a moment dim.
"Kid," said Turkey, in solemn conclusion, speaking from the experience of eighteen years, "I am going to make that little girl—my wife."