gray-green of young olive trees, the dense, dark foliage of young
oranges, and the stunted, scraggy boughs of the Japanese persimmon.
His fruit ranch promised well, the day for their bridal was set, and
they were hopeful, glad, and happy.

But Wing was the young man's implacable enemy. He neither forgot nor
forgave the shaking he had received at their first meeting, and he
revenged himself for it as much as lay in his small power whenever he
found opportunity. He succeeded occasionally in making Ellison look
foolish in his own eyes; and he, in consequence, disliked the child and
disapproved of the universal petting that was given him. It
particularly annoyed him that Annie showed his small enemy so much
favor, and he would sometimes think angrily, when irritated by some
trick of the Chinee Kid, that if she had more regard for his feelings
she would not join in the general encouragement that was given to the
heathen brat in being a public nuisance.

As for Wing, if he had known, or could have understood what happiness
his childish sport had been instrumental in bringing to these two
people, it is probable that his antipathy to Ellison would have
extended even to Annie, whom, as it was, he considered one of his best
friends. But he could not know, nor could they, that he was their
kismet and that his small brown hands wound and unwound, tangled and
straightened, the threads of their lives.

One day they were all three at the depot again. Wing, of course, was
there in the discharge of his usual duties. Annie had walked down to
welcome a friend whom she expected, and Ellison had come because it
gave him an opportunity to be with her. As the railroad approached the
town from the west it passed through a deep cut, from which it came out