Such was the innocence and simplicity of the moment that when I
heard Mrs. Todd laughing behind us in the kitchen I laughed too,
but William did not even blush. I think he was a little deaf, and
he stepped along before me most businesslike and intent upon his
errand.
We went from the upper edge of the field above the house into
a smooth, brown path among the dark spruces. The hot sun brought
out the fragrance of the pitchy bark, and the shade was pleasant as
we climbed the hill. William stopped once or twice to show
me a great wasps'-nest close by, or some fishhawks'-nests below in
a bit of swamp. He picked a few sprigs of late-blooming linnaea as
we came out upon an open bit of pasture at the top of the island,
and gave them to me without speaking, but he knew as well as I that
one could not say half he wished about linnaea. Through this piece
of rough pasture ran a huge shape of stone like the great backbone
of an enormous creature. At the end, near the woods, we could
climb up on it and walk along to the highest point; there above the
circle of pointed firs we could look down over all the island, and
could see the ocean that circled this and a hundred other bits of
island ground, the mainland shore and all the far horizons.
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