"May I pick them?" asked the city girl.
"Yes, but only one root. I'll dig that up with the trowel. That's for
your friend's botany specimen. The rest we'll pull up gently and we'll
get flower, stem and leaves and leave the roots in the ground for other
years. I never pick all of the flowers. I leave some here in the woods
--it seems they belong here and I can't bring myself to walk off with
every last one of them in my arms and leave the hill desolate."
"You _are_ a queer girl!" was the frank statement of the city
girl. "But you're a dear, just the same."
They picked a number of the largest flowers.
"That's enough," Amanda declared.
Isabel laughed. "I'd take every one if it were my haunt."
"And then other people might come here after some and find the place
robbed of all its blooms."
"Oh," said the other girl easily, "I look out for Isabel. Now, please,
may I pick some of that pretty wild azalea?" she asked teasingly as
they came down the hill.
"Help yourself. That isn't rare. You couldn't take all of that if you
tried."
So Isabel gathered branches of the pink bloom until her arms were
filled with it and the six moccasins in her hand almost overshadowed.
As the two girls reached the edge of the woods and climbed over the
fence into the school-yard Martin Landis came walking down the road.
"Hello," he called gaily. "Been robbing the woods, Amanda?"
"Aren't they lovely?" she asked. Then when he drew near she introduced
him to the girl beside her.
Martin Landis was not a blind man. A pretty girl, dark-eyed and dusky-
haired, her arms full of pink azaleas, her lips parted in a smile above
the flowers, and that smile given to him--it was too pretty a picture
to fail in making an impression upon him.
Amanda saw the look of keen interest in the eyes of the girl and her
heart felt heavy. What fortune had brought the two together? Had the
Fates designed the meeting of Isabel and Martin? "Oh, now I've done
it!" thought Amanda. "Isabel wants what she wants and generally gets
it. Pray heaven, she won't want 'My Martin!'"
Similar thoughts disturbed her as they stepped on the sunny road once
more and stood there talking. With a gay laugh Isabel took the finest
pink moccasin from her bunch and handed it to Martin. "Here, I'll be
generous," she said in friendly tones.
"Thank you, Miss Souders." The reply was accompanied with a smile of
pleasure.
A low laugh rippled from the girl's red lips. Amanda's ears tingled so
she did not understand the exchange of light talk. The fear and
jealousy in her heart dulled her senses to all save them, but she
laughed, said good-bye, and hid her feelings as she and Isabel went
down the road to the Reist farmhouse.