I did not give up trying to tell it until we passed the Rodmans’. From the direction of their high-board fence I heard voices. Margaret Amelia and Betty and Delia and Calista were engaged in writing on the weathered boards of the fence with willows dipped in the clear-flowing gutter stream.
“Got it done?” I called mysteriously.
They turned, shaking their heads.
“It was all melted,” they replied. “We couldn’t find another bit.”
“Oh, well,” I cried, “you come on over after supper. I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Something to tell you” would, of course, bring anybody anywhere. After supper they all came “over.” It was that hour which only village children know—that last bright daylight of slanting sun and driven cows tinkling homeward; of front-doors standing open and neighbours calling to one another across the streets, and the sky warm in the quiet surface of some little water from whose bridge lads are tossing stones or hanging bare-footed from the timbers. We withdrew past the family, sitting on the side-porch, to the garden, where the sun was still golden on the tops of the maples.
