Page:Quinby and Son (1925).pdf/82

 The road came up to the full measure of his hopes and expectations. Trees stretched out their branches to form a green dome and through this dome the sunlight fell in flickering splashes. Sumac, wild berries and sweet ferns grew along the sides. For the first mile he chanced upon no other wayfarer, and the hands that gripped the handle bars relaxed their pressure. A great and drowsy contentment settled over his mind.

From this he awoke with startled suddenness as something crashed violently through the roadside hedge. The wheel swerved as his startled senses sought to readjust themselves. One moment he had a vision of a something, large and grotesque, crossing his path; the next he was into it, and his wheel was shocked from under him, and he was tumbling in the road.

The fall did not hurt him and, as he righted himself, he saw a man sitting squat in a cloud of dust and ruefully surveying a butterfly that was leisurely disappearing behind a spread of quivering aspen branches.

"Missed him," the man said with a sigh.

Bert was indignant. "Well, you didn't miss me."

The man forgot the butterfly and stared at the boy. They made a ludicrous pair, sitting there in the road, the one dignified and grave, the other flushed and resentful. The man began to chuckle in a deep bass voice.