Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/163

 “Ilse has also been raging at Perry lately because he has been coming to school with all but one button off his coat. I couldn’t endure it myself, so when we came out of class I whispered to Perry to meet me for five minutes by the Fern Pool at sunset. I slipped out with needle, thread and buttons and sewed them on. He didn’t see why it wouldn’t have done to wait till Friday night and have Aunt Tom sew them on. I said,

“‘Why didn’t you sew them on yourself, Perry?’

“‘I’ve no buttons and no money to buy any,’ he said, ‘but never mind, some day I will have gold buttons if I want them.’

“Aunt Ruth saw me coming in with thread and scissors, etc., and of course wanted to know where, what and why, I told her the whole tale and she said,

“‘You'd better let Perry Miller’s friends sew his buttons on for him.’

“‘I’m the best friend he’s got,’ I said.

“‘I don’t know where you get your low tastes from,’ said Aunt Ruth.

“May 7, 19—

“This afternoon after school Teddy rowed Ilse and me across the harbour to pick May-flowers in the spruce barrens up the Green River. We got basketfuls, and spent a perfect hour wandering about the barrens with the friendly murmur of the little fir trees all around us. As somebody said of strawberries so say I of May-flowers, ‘God might have made a sweeter blossom, but never did.’

“When we left for home a thick white fog had come in over the bar and filled the harbour. But Teddy rowed in the direction of the train whistles, so we hadn’t any trouble really and I thought the experience quite wonderful. We seemed to be floating over a white sea in an unbroken calm. There was no sound save the faint moan of the bar, the deep-sea call beyond, and the low dip of the oars in the glassy water. We were alone in a world of mist on a veiled, shoreless sea. Now and