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It was the first black fox he had ever seen, and, boylike, he took it only as a matter of mild wonder to find the beautiful creature frozen stiff, apparently, on his pile of chaff with one hind leg fast in the trap. He carried the prize home, trap and all, over his shoulder. At his whoop of exultation the whole family came out to admire and congratulate.
In his thwarted-looking, odd child-face there was a shade of appeal not wholly hidden by his evident wish not to be boylike. Betty felt a desire to kneel down suddenly and embrace him, but she knew he was not prepared for such a demonstration. He looked like a creature who had lived continually at bay, and had learned to adjust himself to any situation with caution and restraint.
Boylike, he was not eager for that, with Father Pat and Mr. Perkins looking on. So he backed away deprecatingly, and she succeeded only in touching her lips to a tuft of his bright hair. But at once, forgetting manly pride, he wound his arms about her, and laid his hurt cheek against her shoulder; and she patted his sore back gently, and dropped a tear or two among the tangles brushing her face.
They were not very anxious, they had such faith in Peter. They chuckled, boylike, because they would be late for bed; and it was all mother Wendy's fault! When their voices died away there came cold silence over the lagoon, and then a feeble cry. 'Help, help! Two small figures were beating against the rock; the girl had fainted and lay on the boy's arm.
I was about to ask him, boylike, whether he was successful in his mission, when he added, "The only pity is that you didn't let me stay there a bit longer but you were not to know, so I appreciate your promptness."
Hilary saw that he had made a mistake, and he, too, withdrew his argumentative position. "Perhaps I am wrong then," he said. "Presumably, Hilary. Why, my good boy, of what value would you be to us? I said what I did only out of compassion." This nettled Hilary, who, boylike, had no little idea of his importance in the world.
Being blind, he could not see that, suddenly, a storm of emotion swept over her face. His cheerfulness, his boylike simplicity, his indomitable spirit, which had survived so much, and must still face so much, his almost childlike ways, and the naive description of a blind man's perception, waked in her an almost intolerable yearning. It was not the yearning of a maid for a man.
With which response to Commander Nesbitt's order, I sprang down the after-hatchway on to the main deck, proceeding thence below to where old "Joe" and his topmen were working. Of course I gave the lieutenant the mandate with which I had been charged; but I remaining, boylike, to watch what was going on, the commander not having told me to return immediately, though I ought to have done so.
I, boylike and apprehensive, concluded that his affairs were in a disordered state. I had but one thought at the time. I prayed that misfortune, and not dishonesty, might appear to the world as the occasion of his difficulties. My mother looked younger than ever. She was dressed with much care, and there was a bloom upon her cheek that would have adorned a country maiden.
The only evidence of advancing age was his absentmindedness from boylike brooding over the days of his courtship and marriage and his day dreams about his long-lost love. He recognised it at once and laid down his class work. Gordon met him at the Grand Central Depot with keenest dread and embarrassment. Hurrying out of the crowd, they boarded a downtown car on Fourth Avenue.
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