at
the other.

"Hi!" said Penny dreamily.

"Hi," returned Clint.

"Warm, isn't it?"

"Yes, great."

"I thought I'd study a little, but I guess I was almost asleep."

"Day-dreaming," suggested Clint. There was a moment's silence, during
which an odd idea occurred to Clint. He didn't much care to walk by
himself, and he didn't know where to look for Amy or any of the other
fellows who might care to join him. Why not, then, ask Penny Durkin?
Before he had thoroughly weighed the merits of the scheme he found
himself making the suggestion.

"Come on for a walk, Durkin," he said. "Bring your old book along if you
like. We'll find a place in the woods and, as Amy says, commune
with Nature."

Penny looked first surprised and then pleased, and, "I'd love to," he
said. So they set off together around the corner of Torrence and past
the little brick building which held the heating plant and made off
across the field. The sun was gloriously warm and the air was like that
of a June day, and after the first minute or two of progress they
discovered that they had no inclination toward hurrying, that, in short,
they felt decidedly lazy and drowsy, and that the sooner they reached
that place in the woods where they were to commune with Nature the
pleasanter it would be.

Conversation was fitful. Penny spoke hesitantly of Clint's good work in
yesterday's game, ventured a vague prediction that Brimfield would win
from Claflin on Saturday and then seemed to fall asleep. Clint made no
effort to arouse him and presently they climbed over the stone wall that
divided the school property from the woodland and made their way through
the trees until they were half-way up the slope. There, in the lee of an
outcropping grey ledge of weathered granite, they subsided on a bed of
leaves with sighs of contentment. Through the nearer trees and above the
more distant ones, they could see the further side of the field and the
sunlit buildings.

"I reckon," said Clint, propping his shoulders against a convenient
surface of the ledge, "this is the place we were looking for. Now, bring
on your Nature and we'll commune."

"I used to come up here when I was a First Former," said Penny. "Two or
three of us kids would sneak stuff from dining hall and build a fire
back of this rock and picnic. One day we went off and forgot about the
fire and that night someone looked over and saw a blaze and they had to
fight it for almost an hour with brooms an