“She’s calling you,” said I.
“Wait, Dickie!” This time there was an aggrieved, pleading note, against which the stern Dickie was not proof.
“Well,” said he, “I suppose I’d better see what she wants. Will you wait?”
“No, I will go on slowly and you can catch up with me. Don’t be long, Dickie.”
But a full hour later, when I returned, he was just starting. From some distance up the road I could see them. On the veranda Rosie’s mother rocked and worked placidly away at something in her lap. Quite sedately they walked down the path until a big hydrangea bush, studded thickly with great clumps of blossoms, screened them from the house. Then something occurred which told me that the boating incident and the unanswered note had either been forgiven or forgotten. I dodged out of sight behind a hedge. When I thought it safe to come out, Dickie was swinging up the road toward me, whistling furiously. Clawing my shoulder, he remarked: “Say, old man, what do you think of her?”
“Think of whom?”
“Why, Rosie.”
“Rosie! What Rosie? Oh, you mean the one who gave you the cherries?”
“Yes, of course. Say”—this impulsively in my ear—“she’s the sweetest girl alive.”
“From what I saw just now,” said I, “I should say that you were quite competent to pass on Rosie’s flavor. You took at least two tastes.”