long that the impatient Oliver had finally gone
without her. When Cousin Jasper had returned to the house, she
wandered rather disconsolately up and down the hedged paths and,
finally coming to the big gate, she stood looking out. The road
stretched away invitingly across the hillsides, the sleepy stillness
of the afternoon was broken only by the occasional drone of a motor
and by the grinding wheels of a big hay wagon that labored along the
highway in the dust.

She walked out along the road, thinking that she would find a vantage
point to look down to the river and see how Oliver was faring. The way
presently crossed an open ridge whence she could see the smooth stream
and the sail creeping slowly out from the green shore. For some time
she stood watching its progress, wishing vainly that she might have
gone, until she became suddenly aware that some one was staring at
her. Turning, she saw that a child with very yellow hair and very
round blue eyes was sitting between two alder bushes on the edge of a
ditch, gazing at her intently.

"What are you doing?" she asked, astonished, for the youngster, a
square little boy of four or five years old, seemed far too small to
be on the road alone.

"I was wishing I could go home," he answered.

There was a slight quivering of his chin as he spoke, as though the
problem was rather a desperate one, but he was determined not to cry.
"I was wishing on that hay wagon when it went by," he explained
sedately. "I shut my eyes so I wouldn't see it again and break the
luck, and when I opened them, you were there."

He climbed over the ditch and came to her side to tuck his hand
confidently into hers. There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that
she would take him home.

"Can you show me where you live?" she asked as they went along
together.

"Oh, yes," he answered cheerfully. "There was a cow eating beside the
road, and I passed it once, but it looked at me so hard when I went by
that I was afraid to go back. I'll show you."

They walked along for some distance, he tramping sturdily by her side
and chattering contentedly, giving her all sorts of miscellaneous and
unsought information, that his name was Martin, that he had a little
brother, that the brother was crying when he went away from home,
that his mother was crying a little, too, that they had a red calf in
the barn, and that there was a scarecrow in the field beside their
house. He led her into a crossroad, then down