Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/138

132 and helping, when each tree was planted, to hold it upright while he pressed down the earth about its roots.

"We will leave an open space through the center," he said, "a lane that will lead straight up toward the house, so that when Ralph and I come home we can look up to the open door and the hollyhocks around the step. Only," he shook his head regretfully, "I am afraid Ralph won't see the flowers. His head is too full of dollar signs when he comes home from the town."

Barbara turned about to look through the orchard. Some one came trudging along between the little trees, his heavy, tired feet crunching in the leaves.

"Oh, it's a peddler," she cried eagerly, for she was always pleased when these traveling merchants came past, with their laces and gay embroideries and colored beads to dazzle the eyes of little girls. But this was a peddler of another sort, a dark-faced man with melting black eyes and eager speech that was less than half of it English. He was an immigrant Italian, newly come to this great America, he managed to explain, and he was trying to sell the trinkets and small household treasures that he had brought with him.

They led him up to the house, for he was weary and hungry, and while Barbara brought him food, Felix was plying him with questions as to where he had come from and whither he was going. He had