Still without notion of whither bound, the runaways, moist and dishevelled, found themselves down by the railroad tracks. There, in front of the Pacific depot, stood the 10:43 "accommodation" for Osawatomie and other points south. Another idea out of the blue!

"Let's go to Osawatomie!" cried Missy.

The accommodation was puffing laboriously into action as the last Junior clambered pantingly on. But they'd all got on! They were on their way!

But not on their way to Osawatomie.

For before they had all found satisfactory places on the red plush seats where it was hard to sit still with that bright balminess streaming in through the open windows--hard to sit still, or to think, or to do anything but flutter up and down and laugh and chatter about nothing at all--the conductor appeared.

"Tickets, please!"

A trite and commonplace phrase, but potent to plunge errant, winging fancies down to earth. The chattering ceased short. No one had thought of tickets, nor even of money. The girls of the party looked appalled--in Cherryvale the girls never dreamed of carrying money to school; then furtively they glanced at the boys. Just as furtively the boys were exploring into pockets, but though they brought forth a plentiful salvage of the anomalous treasure usually to be found in school-boys' pockets, the display of "change" was pathetic. Raymond had a quarter, and that was more than anyone else turned out.

The conductor impatiently repeated:

"Tickets, please!"

Then Missy, feeling that financial responsibility must be recognized in a cla.s.s president, began to put her case with a formal dignity that impressed every one but the conductor.

"We're the Junior cla.s.s of the Cherryvale High School--we wish to go to Osawatomie. Couldn't we--maybe--?"

Formal dignity broke down, her voice stuck in her throat, but her eyes ought to have been enough. They were big and shining eyes, and when she made them appealing they had been known to work wonders with father and mother and other grown-ups, even with the austere Professor Sutton.

But this burly figure in the baggy blue uniform had a face more like a wooden Indian than a human grown-up--and an old, dyspeptic wooden Indian at that. Missy's eyes were to avail her nothing that hour.

"Off you get at the watering-tank," he ordained. "The whole pack of you."

And at the watering-tank off they got.

And then, as often follows a mood of high adventure, there fell upon the festive group a moment of pause, of unnatural quiet, of "let down."

"Well, what're we going to do now?" queried somebody.

"We'll do whatever Missy says," said Raymond, just as if he were Sir Walter Raleigh speaking of the Virgin Queen. It was a wonder someone didn't start teasing him about her; but everyone was too taken up waiting for Missy to proclaim. She set her very soul vibrating; shut her eyes tightly a moment to think; and, as if in proof that Providence helps them who must help others, almost instantly she opened them again.

"Rocky Ford!"

Just like that, out of the blue, a quick, unfaltering, almost unconscious cry of the inspired. And, with resounding acclaim, her followers caught it up:

"Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!"--"That's the ticket!"--"We'll have a picnic'."--"Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!"

Rocky Ford, home of nymphs, water-babies and Indian legend, was only half a mile away. Again it shone in all its old-time romantic loveliness on Missy's inward eye. And for a fact it was a good Maytime picnic place.

That day everything about the spot seemed invested with a special kind of beauty, the kind of beauty you feel so poignantly in stories and pictures but seldom meet face to face in real life. The Indian maiden became a memory you must believe in: she had loved someone and they were parted somehow and she was turned into a swan or something. Off on either side the creek, the woods stretched dim and mysterious; but nearby, on the banks, the little new leaves stirred and sparkled in the sun like green jewels; and the water dribbled and sparkled over the flat white stones of the ford like a million swishing diamonds; and off in the distance there were sounds which may have been birds--or, perhaps, the legendary maiden singing; and, farther away, somewhere, a faint clanging music which must be cow-bells, only they had a remote heavenly quality rare in cow-bells.

And, all the while, the sun beaming down on the ford, intensely soft and bright. Why is it that the sun can seem so much softer and brighter in some places than in others?

Missy felt that soft brightness penetrating deeper and deeper into her being. It seemed a sort of limpid, shining tide flowing through to her very soul; it made her blood tingle, and her soul quiver. And, in some mysterious way, the presence, of Raymond Bonner, consciousness of Raymond--Raymond himself--began to seem all mixed up with this ineffable, surging effulgence. Missy recognized that she had long experienced a secret, strange, shy kind of feeling toward Raymond. He was so handsome and so gay, and his dark eyes told her so plainly that he liked her, and he carried her books home for her despite the fact that the other boys teased him. The other girls had teased Missy, too, so that sometimes she didn't know whether she was more happy or embarra.s.sed over Raymond's admiration.

But, to-day, everyone seemed lifted above such childish rudeness.

When Missy had first led off from the watering-tank toward Rocky Ford, Raymond had taken his place by her side, and he maintained it there masterfully though two or three other boys tried to include themselves in the cla.s.s president's group--"b.u.t.tinskys," Raymond termed them.

Once, as they walked together along the road, Raymond took hold of her hand. He had done that much before, but this was different. Those other times did not count. She knew that this was different and that he, too, knew it was different. They glanced at each other, and then quickly away.

Then, when they turned off into a field, to avoid meeting people who might ask questions, Raymond held together the barbed wires of the fence very carefully, so she could creep under without mishap. And when they neared the woods, he kicked all the twigs from her path, and lifted aside the underbrush lest it touch her face. And at each opportunity for this delicious solicitude they would look at each other, and then quickly away.

That was in many ways an unforgettable picnic; many were the unheard-of things carried out as soon as thought of. For example, the matter of lunch. What need to go hungry when there were eggs in a farmer's henhouse not a half-mile away, and potatoes in the farmer's store-house, and sundry other edibles all spread out, as if waiting, in the farmer's cellar? (Blessings on the farmer's wife for going a-visiting that day!)

The boys made an ingenious oven of stones and a glorious fire of brush; and the girls made cunning dishes out of big, clean-washed leaves. Then, when the potatoes and eggs were ready, all was devoured with a zest that paid its own tribute to the fair young cooks; and the health of the fair young cooks was drunk in Swan Creek water, cupped in st.u.r.dy masculine hands; and even the girls tried to drink from those same cups, laughing so they almost strangled. A mad, merry and supremely delightful feast.

After she had eaten, for some reason Missy felt a craving to wander off somewhere and sit still a while. She would have loved to stretch out in the gra.s.s, and half-close her eyes, and gaze up at the bits of shining, infinite blue of the sky, and dream. But there was Raymond at her elbow--and she wanted, even more than she wanted to be alone and dream, Raymond to be there at her elbow.

Then, too, there were all the others. Someone shouted:

"What'll we do now? What'll we do, Missy?"

So the cla.s.s president dutifully set her wits to work. Around the flat white stones of the ford the water was dribbling, warm, soft, enticing.

"Let's go wading!" she cried.

Wading!

Usually Missy would have shrunk from appearing before boys in bare feet.

But this was a special kind of day which held no room for embarra.s.sment; and, more quickly than it takes to tell it, shoes and stockings were off and the new game was on. Missy stood on a stepping-stone, suddenly diffident; the water now looked colder and deeper, the whispering cascadelets seemed to roar like breakers on a beach. The girls were all letting out little squeals as the water chilled their ankles, and the boys made feints of chasing them into deeper water.

Raymond pursued Missy, squealing and skipping from stone to stone till, unexpectedly, she lost her slippery footing and went sprawling into the shallow stream.

"Oh, Missy! I'm sorry!" She felt his arms tugging at her. Then she found herself standing on the bank, red-faced and dripping, feeling very wretched and very happy at the same time--wretched because Raymond should see her in such plight; happy because he was making such a fuss over her notwithstanding.

He didn't seem to mind her appearance, but took his hat and began energetically to fan her draggled hair.

"I wish my hair was curly like Kitty Allen's," she said.

"I like it this way," said Raymond, unplaiting the long braids so as to fan them better.

"But hers curls up all the prettier when it's wet. Mine strings."

"Straight hair's the nicest," he said with finality.

He liked straight hair best! A wave of celestial bliss stole over her.

It was wonderful: the big, fleecy clouds so serenely beautiful up in the enigmatic blue; the sun pouring warmly down and drying her dress in uneven patches; the whisperings of the green-jewelled leaves and the swishing of the diamond-bubbles on the stones; the drowsy, mysterious sounds from far away in the woods, and fragrance everywhere; and everything seeming delightfully remote; even the other boys and girls--everything and everybody save Raymond, standing there so patiently fanning the straight hair he admired.

Oh, the whole place was entrancing, entrancing in a new way; and her sensations, too, were entrancing in a new way. Even when Raymond, as he manipulated her hair, inadvertently pulled the roots, the p.r.i.c.kly pains seemed to tingle on down through her being in little tremors of pure ecstasy.

Raymond went on fanning her hair.

"Curly hair's messy looking," he observed after a considerable pause during which, evidently, his thoughts had remained centred on this pleasing theme.

And then, all of a sudden, Missy found herself saying an inexplicable, unheard-of thing: