Truth was, Johnny had only half heard him. He had suddenly remembered something. Jack Dawson, the aviator, who had come to live down there on the edge of the meadow, had said, “We’d have made the trip faster if we’d had my new motor going.”
“A new kind of fuel,” Johnny whispered to himself. “That’s what he said. More foot pounds of energy than any other fuel. Wonder what it could be?”
At a rather late hour that same afternoon, Jensie and Ballard sat on the trunk of a fallen tree. They were both deliciously weary. All day they had tramped the hillsides. The dry leaves had rustled beneath their feet. From time to time beechnuts had come showering down upon them. At other times too, the deep baying of Ballard’s big red hound had told them of squirrels up a tree. It had been grand.
Now they could see the sun casting long mountain shadows over the valley far below. At their side rested six red squirrels and one big fat striped coon. Yes, it had been glorious. Garbed in her knickers and russet red sweater, the girl seemed a part of it all.
“Listen!” Ballard exclaimed quite suddenly. “Bees!”
Jensie listened but heard nothing. The sharp-eared boy was not long in pointing out a huge, hollow chestnut tree. Some thirty feet from the ground Jensie caught sight of a faint, wavering line.
“It’s a bee tree!” Ballard was excited. “A big swarm. Hundred pounds of honey, mebby two hundred. Monday I’ll come up and cut it down.”
“Monday, Ballard?” There was a power of suggestion in the girl’s tone.
Ballard made no reply. His face, as he looked away at the hills was a study.
“Ballard,” the girl’s voice was low and husky, “we’ve been to school together all our lives. We belong to the mountains, you and I. And because we belong, we have to do all we can for the mountains.