“Oh, it is nice on the roof of the world!” she cried. “Think of that–here am I, a Ph. D. in philology, and the only adjective I can find is ’nice’!”
“It’s all in how you say it,” I smiled. “I think I understand. I called you ’poor child’ a few moments ago because you’d never been on a high hilltop. Now I take it back. Think of getting those first virgin impressions when you are old enough to appreciate them! I envy you. I was only five when they took me up Mount Washington.”
“I should think you’d have insisted on the Matterhorn by the time you were ten,” she laughed. “I should.”
We hunted out some soft moss in the shade, and sat down to get cool in the summit breeze before the descent. The girl spoke little, her eyes wandering constantly off over the view with the light of discovery in them. In my own staid way, I had always fancied I enjoyed the quieter pleasures of the outdoors as much as any one, but before this rapture I was almost abashed. If I did not speak, it was chiefly because I feared to drop clumsy words into her mood.
But presently I did suggest that we must be starting down. As there was no path visible–later I have found that since the advent of motors there are never any paths where the walking is in the least strenuous!–we took the way we had come, and began the descent. Naturally I went ahead, and helped her all I could. To one unaccustomed to hard walking, a steep descent is more tiresome than a climb, and I began to fear that I had led her into an excess. But she came bravely tumbling along behind. In some places I had to put up my arms and lift her down. In others she had to slide one foot far ahead for a secure resting-place, with a reckless show of stocking. But she laughed it all off gayly. We missed, somehow, the way we had taken up, and presently found ourselves on a ledge with a clean drop of eight feet. I prospected to right and left, found a place where the drop was only six, and jumped. Then she lowered the basket to me, sat on the edge herself, leaned out and put her arms about my neck, and I swung her off. As I set her on the ground again our faces were close together for an instant, and I could feel rather than see her eyes laughing into mine.
“This is a very pleasant hill,” said I.
“But we are almost to the wood road now,” she darted back, jumping into the lead.
A moment more, and we stood in the wood road, and presently we came upon a spring under a rock, and plunged our faces into it and drank. She looked up with the water dripping from her saucy nose, and quoted: “’As rivers of water in a dry place.’ I’m learning lots to-day. Now it’s the elemental force of the Bible similes.”
“All the wisdom isn’t in New York–and dictionaries,” said I.
“There, now you’ve mentioned the Dictionary! How could you!” she cried, and suddenly, like a child, snapped water into my face.