Miss Thorne, her sunbonnet laid aside
from her glossy black braids, moved swiftly and easily here and there in
this charming stage-set of a kitchen. About ten feet in front of it, on
the pine needles, stood the dining table, set with white.
[Illustration: "I beg pardon," said he. The girl turned]
The girl nodded brightly to Bob.
"Finished?" she inquired. She pointed to the water pail: "There's a
useful task for willing hands."
Bob filled the pail, and set it brimming on the section of cedar log
which seemed to be its appointed resting place.
"Thank you," said the girl. Bob leaned against the tree and watched her
as she moved here and there about the varied business of cooking. Every
few minutes she would stop and look upward through the cool shadows of
the trees, like a bird drinking. At times she burst into snatches of
song, so brief as to be unrecognizable.
"Do you like sticks in your food?" she asked Bob, as though suddenly
remembering his presence, "and pine needles, and the husks of pine nuts,
and other debris? because that's what the breezes and trees and naughty
little squirrels are always raining down on me.
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