Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/66

60 bend of the stream. That has passed out of his hands lately. It is at the far end, on the last farm, that John Massey lives."

Oliver from this vantage point could pick out the intricate succession of lanes and highroad that he must take to cross the river and reach John Massey's place, showing from here as only a dot of a gray house at the angle of the stream. The sunshine was very clear and hot over the valley below, but the oak tree spread its broad shadow all about them and bowed its lofty head to a fresh, salt-laden wind.

"See how still the trees are along the river," said the Beeman, "but the oak tree is never quiet. The breeze comes past that gap in the hills, yonder where you can look through to the sea, and it seems never to stop blowing. So we call this place the Windy Hill."

The three set off on their errand very gayly in the big car, although Polly and Janet, in the back seat together, were a little shy and silent at the very first. At the end of a mile, however, they were beginning to warm toward each other and had set up a brisk chatter before they had gone three.

"I knew Janet would like Polly," Oliver was thinking. "She is the sort of girl I like myself, not like Cousin Eleanor. The kind that makes you feel that your clothes and your manners are all wrong and that you haven't anything to say—those are the girls I can't stand."

He quite forgot that this harsh judgment of his