"I hate it when it's quiet! I like to hear the wind howl in the pines--"
He expressed his annoyance. "You never want to talk anything but horses
and swimming. Wait till you come back next spring with long skirts--such
a nice well-behaved Miss Grey." He was, in familiar phrase, out of sorts,
with a bit of will to annoy a disappointing companion. His mild effort
had no success.
"Oh, John, it's awful! You ought to be sorry for me. The more you grow up
the more your skirts grow down. Bother their manners! Who cares! Let's go
home. It feels just as if it was Sunday."
"It is, in the woods. Well, come along." He walked on in the silence, she
thinking of that alarming prospect of school, and he of the escaped
slave's secret and, what struck the boy most--the hawk. Never before had
he been told anything which was to be sacredly guarded from others. It
gave him now a pleasant feeling of having been trusted. Suppose Leila had
been told such a thing, how would she feel, and Aunt Ann? He was like a
man who has too large a deposit in a doubtful bank. He was vaguely uneasy
lest he might tell or in some way betray his sense of possessing a
person's confidence.
As they came near the house, Leila said, "Catch me, I'll run you home."
"Tag," he cried.
As they came to the side porch, Ann Penhallow said, "Finish that
handkerchief--now, at once.
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