Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/149

Rh him, and he became tongue-tied in her presence. Peter had been possessed before by many errant fancies, but never by an obsession such as this. He went about his work blind to everything but the memory of her face. When he peered into the oat-bin it was Annie that he saw; she smiled back at him from the polished sides of the mail phaeton and the bottom of every bucket of water. She made him happy and miserable, exultant and fearful, all at once. Poor badgered Peter knew now what it felt like to be a brook-trout when a skilful angler is managing the reel.

This alternate hope and fear was sufficiently upsetting for one whose whole mind should have been upon his duties, but it was nothing to the state that followed. Their quarrel fell from a clear sky. He had taken her, one Sunday afternoon, to a popular amusement resort, a trolley ride's distance from Willowbrook, and had suggested refreshments in a place he remembered from the year before. It was