She darted a quick look at me, and turned back to the trellis, where she was nailing on strips. She did not speak, and when I came over to face her, with a post for the next arch, I saw that her eyes were moist. She turned her face half away, blinking her eyelids hard, bit her lip, then picked up the level and set it with a smack against the post. I put my hand over hers–both our hands were dirty!–and said, “What is the matter? Are you tired?”
“Please, please–level this post,” she replied.
“Are you tired?”
“No, I’m not tired. I’m a fool. Come, we must finish the arch!”
“I guess we won’t do any more arches to-day,” I replied, “or you won’t, at any rate. You’ll go home and rest.”
She looked at me an instant with just the hint of her twinkle coming back. “I’m so unused to taking orders,” she said, “that I’ve lost the art of obedience. Move the post a little to the right, please.”
I did so, and we worked on in silence. We had built the wide central arch by the time the sun began to drop down into our faces. There were only five arches more to build.
“I shall write to-night and have the roses hurried along,” said I.
We walked back toward the house and looked over the lawn, past the sundial, and saw the farm through the trellis, and beyond the farm the trees at the edge of my clearing, and then a distant roof or two, and the far hills. The apple blossoms were fragrant in the orchard. The persistent song sparrows were singing. The shadow of the dial post stretched far out toward the east.
“It is pointing toward the brook,” said I. “Shall we go and ask the thrush to sing?”