Already the
excursion was beginning to take on the color of its ending,--an
encounter between the personalities of Judith and Arnold, with Sylvia
and Lawrence left out. When the shoes finally came off, they revealed
white silk half-hose, which, discarded in their turn, showed a pair of
startlingly pale feet, on which the new boy now essayed wincingly to
walk. "Ouch! Ouch! OUCH!" he cried, holding up first one and then the
other from contact with the hot sharp-edged pebbles of the path, "How
do you _do it_?"
"Oh, it always hurts when you begin in the spring," said Judith
carelessly. "You have to get used to it. How old are you?"
"Ten, last May."
"Buddy here began going barefoot last summer and he's only four," she
stated briefly, proceeding towards the barn and chicken-house.
After that remark the new boy walked forward with no more articulate
complaints, though his face was drawn and he bit his lips. He was
shown the chicken-yard--full of gawky, half-grown chickens shedding
their down and growing their feathers--and forgot his feet in the
fascination of scattering grain to them and watching their fluttering
scrambles. He was shown the rabbit-house and allowed to take one of
the limp, unresponsive little bunches of fur in his arms, and feed
a lettuce-leaf into its twitching pink mouth. He was shown the
house-in-the-maple-tree, a rough floor fixed between two large
branches, with a canvas roof over it, ensconced in which retreat his
eyes shone with happy excitement.
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