ead the
best I could with my fingers, putting apple butter on one, and mashed
potatoes on the other. Leon leaned on the hoe and watched me coming.
He was a hungry boy, and lonesome too, but he couldn't be forced to say
so.

"Laddie is at work in the barn," he said.

"I'm going to play in the creek," I answered.

Crossing our meadow there was a stream that had grassy banks, big
trees, willows, bushes and vines for shade, a solid pebbly bed; it was
all turns and bends so that the water hurried until it bubbled and sang
as it went; in it lived tiny fish coloured brightly as flowers, beside
it ran killdeer, plover and solemn blue herons almost as tall as I was
came from the river to fish; for a place to play on an August
afternoon, it couldn't be beaten. The sheep had been put in the lower
pasture; so the cross old Shropshire ram was not there to bother us.

"Come to the shade," I said to Leon, and when we were comfortably
seated under a big maple weighted down with trailing grapevines, I
offered the bread. Leon took a piece in each hand and began to eat as
if he were starving. Laddie would have kissed me and said: "What a
fine treat! Thank you, Little Sister."

Leon was different. He ate so greedily you had to know he was glad to
get it, but he wouldn't say so, not if he never got any more. When you
knew him, you understood he wouldn't forget it, and he'd be certain to
do something nice for you before the day was over to pay back. We sat
there talking about everything we saw, and at last Leon said with a
grin: "Shelley isn't getting much grape sap is she?"

"I didn't know she wanted grape sap."

"She read about it in a paper. It said to cut the vine of a wild
grape, catch the drippings and moisten your hair. This would make it
glossy and grow faster."

"What on earth does Shelley want with more hair than she has?"

"Oh, she has heard it bragged on so much she thinks people would say
more if she could improve it."

I looked and there was the vine, dry as could be, and a milk crock
beneath it.

"Didn't the silly know she had to cut the vine in the spring when the
sap was running?"

"Bear witness, O vine! that she did not," said Leon, "and speak, ye
voiceless pottery, and testify that she expected to find you
overflowing."

"Too bad that she's going to be disappointed."

"She isn't! She's going to find ample liquid to bathe her streaming
tresses. Keep quiet and watch me."

He picked up the c