Lemme twy rit-man-poor-man-bedder-man-fief on your
buckalins, pease."
"Then you'll stay here and be my little girl, will you?"
"Yet, I tay here an' be Timfy's ittle dirl. Now oo p'ay by your own seff
ittle while, Mit Vildy, pease, coz I dot to det down an find Samfy an'
put my dolly to bed coz she's defful seepy."
"It's half past eight," said Samantha coming into the kitchen, "and
Timothy ain't nowheres to be found, and Jabe hain't seen him sence
noon-time."
"You needn't be scared for fear you've lost your bargain," remarked Miss
Vilda sarcastically. "There ain't so many places open to the boy that
he'll turn his back on this one, I guess!"
Yet, though the days of chivalry were over, that was precisely what
Timothy Jessup had done.
Wilkins's Wood was a quiet stretch of timber land that lay along the
banks of Pleasant River; and though the natives (for the most part)
never noticed but that it was paved with asphalt and roofed in with
oilcloth, yet it was, nevertheless, the most tranquil bit of loveliness
in all the country round. For there the river twisted and turned and
sparkled in the sun, and "bent itself in graceful courtesies of
farewell" to the hills it was leaving; and kissed the velvet meadows
that stooped to drink from its brimming cup; and lapped the trees
gently, as they hung over its crystal mirrors the better to see their
own fresh beauty. And here it wound "about and in and out," laughing in
the morning sunlight, to think of the tiny streamlet out of which it
grew; paling and shimmering at evening when it held the stars and
moonbeams in its bosom; and trembling in the night wind to think of the
great unknown sea into whose arms it was hurrying.
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