silently to it. "Ha, ha!" sang Bertie. And beneath his light whip the
gelding sprang forward into its stride.


The clocks of Massachusetts struck eleven. Oscar rose doubtfully from
his chair in Billy's study. Again he looked into Billy's bedroom and at
the empty bed. Then he went for a moment and watched the still forcibly
sleeping John. He turned his eyes this way and that, and after standing
for a while moved quietly back to his chair and sat down with the
leather wallet of notes on his lap, his knees together, and his
unblocked shoes touching. In due time the clocks of Massachusetts
struck noon.


In a meadow where a brown amber stream ran, lay Bertie and Billy on the
grass. Their summer coats were off, their belts loosened. They watched
with eyes half closed the long water-weeds moving gently as the current
waved and twined them. The black gelding, brought along a farm road and
through a gate, waited at its ease in the field beside a stone wall. Now
and then it stretched and cropped a young leaf from a vine that grew
over the wall, and now and then the want wind brought down the fruit
blossoms all over the meadow. They fell from the tree where Bertie and
Billy lay, and the boys brushed them from their faces. Not very far
away was Blue Hill, softly shining; and crows high up in the air came
from it occasionally across here.

By one o'clock a change had come in Billy's room. Oscar during that
hour had opened his satchel of philosophy upon his lap and read his
notes attentively. Being almost word perfect in many parts of them, he
now spent his unexpected leisure in acquiring accurately the language of