agazine Company

Published October, 1912

Published in the United States of America

TO
JOSEPH LEE
OF NEEDWOOD FOREST

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

"She trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly." _Frontispiece_

"She said gravely: 'I am afraid it will be blue-bird weather.'" 14

"'Well,' he said pleasantly, 'what comes next, Miss Herold?'" 26

"'I'm _so_ sorry, Jim.'" 33

"They ate their luncheon there together." 88

"'Jim,' he said, 'where did you live?'" 99

"'He tells you that he--he is in love with you?'" 127

BLUE-BIRD WEATHER

I

It was now almost too dark to distinguish objects; duskier and vaguer
became the flat world of marshes, set here and there with cypress and
bounded only by far horizons; and at last land and water disappeared
behind the gathered curtains of the night. There was no sound from the
waste except the wind among the withered reeds and the furrowing splash
of wheel and hoof over the submerged causeway.

The boy who was driving had scarcely spoken since he strapped Marche's
gun cases and valise to the rear of the rickety wagon at the railroad
station. Marche, too, remained silent, preoccupied with his own
reflections. Wrapped in his fur-lined coat, arms folded, he sat doubled
forward, feeling the Southern swamp-chill busy with his bones. Now and
then he was obliged to relight his pipe, but the cold bit at his
fingers, and he hurried to protect himself again with heavy gloves.

The small, rough hands of the boy who was driving were naked, and
finally Marche mentioned it, asking the child if he were not cold.

"No, sir," he said, with a colorless brevity that might have been
shyness or merely the dull indifference of the very poor, accustomed to
discomfort.

"Don't you feel cold at all?" persisted Marche kindly.

"No, sir."

"I suppose you are hardened to this sort of weather?"

"Yes, sir."

By the light of a flaming match, Marche glanced sideways at him as he
drew his pipe into a glow once more, and for an instant the boy's gray
eyes flickered toward his in the flaring light. Then darkness masked
them both again.

"Are you Mr. Herold's son?" inquired the young man.

"Yes, sir," almost sullenly.

"How old are you?"

"Elev