all girls with blue ribbons in their hair who are
watching for an opportunity to rescue drowning boys."

"How stupid you are, David!" said Penelope, "And yet at times you have
been monstrously stupid. Of course, I know that Harry is perfectly
safe with James; but what I meant was that it seems only yesterday----"

"Since you pulled me out of the brook?" I said.

Then I tucked her hand beneath my arm, and, standing there in the deep
weeds and briers, we looked about the clearing. Even the Professor's
care had long been missing. The roof of the cabin had fallen in years
ago, and the end of a single log, poking through a mass of green,
marked the stable from which the white mule had regarded me so
critically. Yet the mountains rose above us, the same mountains; the
same ridge sloped upward to the south, and above it was the same blue
sky and a white cloud hovering in it. A crow cawed from the pines. It
might have been the same crow that in other days called to me, now
cawing his welcome. It did seem but yesterday. How fast the weeds and
briers had grown, defying the Professor's languid hoe! How suddenly
had the timbers snapped which held the roof! And doubtless Nathan's
home went down in a gust of wind.

"Yesterday, Penelope," I said, "you led me out of the woods, dripping
wet--don't you remember? from my tumble into the pool. Right there
your father stood, looking at that very cloud, wistfully."

"And yesterday," Penelope said, pointing over the clearing, "in the
morning early, father and I were sitting by that very door, when we
heard a shout and, looking, saw you running toward us through the
brush. Don't you remember, David? You fell down out there--why, a
juniper tree has grown up there since yesterday."

Then Penelope was very quiet. I saw her glance to the bushes, and her
hand gripped mine. I knew what was in her mind. I saw the same
picture; I could almost hear the brush crackling under the Professor's
flying feet, and leaning down over her I said: "Don't cry, little one;
I'll take care of you."

That was really yesterday, Harry, and really yesterday Penelope and I
rode again over the trail along which the white mule had carried us at
such a terrible pace. We climbed the ridge, and at its crest Penelope
reined in her horse and pointed over the valley. I followed her raised
hand over the land, over the green of the fields and the white of
blossoming orchards, to the great barn, gleaming chee