of that peculiar humor so pleasing to the young male; but the
summer that she "put up her hair," the puppies, so to speak, got
their eyes open. When the boys saw those soft plaits, no longer
hanging within easy reach of a rude and teasing hand, but folded
around her head behind her little ears; when they saw the small
curls breaking over and through the brown braids that were
flecked with gilt, and the stray locks, like feathers of spun
silk, clustering in the nape of her neck; when David and Blair
saw these things--it was about the time their voices were showing
amazing and ludicrous register--something below the artless
brutalities of the boys' sense of humor was touched. They took
abruptly their first perilous step out of boyhood. Of course they
did not know it.... The significant moment came one afternoon
when they all went out to the toll-house for ice-cream. There was
a little delay at the gate, while the boys wrangled as to who
should stand treat. "I'll pull straws with you," said Blair;
Blair's pleasant, indolent mind found the appeal to chance the
easiest way to settle things, but he was always good-natured
when, as now, the verdict was against him. "Come on," he
commanded, gayly, "I'll shell out!" Mrs. Todd, who had begun to
dispense pink and brown ice-cream, for them when they were very
little children, winked and nodded as they all came in together,
and made a jocose remark about "handsome couples"; then she
trundled off to get the ice-cream, leaving them in the saloon.
This "saloon" was an ell of the toll-house; it opened on a little
garden, from which a flight of rickety steps led down to a float
where half a dozen skiffs were tied up, waiting to be hired. In
warm weather, when the garden was blazing with fragrant color,
Mrs. Todd would permit favored patrons to put their small tables
out among the marigolds and zinnias and sit and eat and talk. The