The little girl flashed a clear defiance; from a pair of beaming hazel eyes
she threw him a scornful challenge. "I bet I can beat you," she stoutly
rejoined. Then as the boy's glance fell upon her hair, her defiance waned.
She put on her sunbonnet and drew it down over her brow. "I reckon I can
run some," she finished uneasily.

The boy followed her movements with a candid stare. "You can't hide it," he
taunted; "it shines right through everything. O Lord, ain't I glad my
head's not red!"

At this pharisaical thanksgiving the little girl flushed to the ruffled
brim of her bonnet. Her sensitive lips twitched, and she sat meekly gazing
past the boy at the wall of rough gray stones which skirted a field of
ripening wheat. Over the wheat a light wind blew, fanning the even heads of
the bearded grain and dropping suddenly against the sunny mountains in the
distance. In the nearer pasture, where the long grass was strewn with wild
flowers, red and white cattle were grazing beside a little stream, and the
tinkle of the cow bells drifted faintly across the slanting sunrays. It was
open country, with a peculiar quiet cleanliness about its long white roads
and the genial blues and greens of its meadows.

"Ain't I glad, O Lord!" chanted the boy again.

The little girl stirred impatiently, her gaze fluttering from the
landscape.

"Old Aunt Ailsey's conjured all the tails off Sambo's sheep," she remarked,
with feminine wile. "I saw 'em hanging on her door."

"Oh, shucks! she can't conjure!" scoffed the boy. "She's nothing but a free