"Oh, mercy! Yes!" ejaculated Agnes. "Do you think I'd tell a story?"
"Well! I like _that_!" cried Agnes, with some vexation.
"I don't know you and you don't know me," said the boy. "Everybody that I meet doesn't tell me the truth. So now!"
"Do _you_ always tell the truth?" demanded Agnes, shrewdly.
Again the boy flushed, but there was roguishness in his brown eyes. "I don't _dare_ tell it--sometimes," he said.
"Well, there's nobody to scare _me_ into story-telling," said Agnes, loftily, deciding that she did not like this boy so well, after all.
"Oh, I'll risk it--for the peaches," said the white-haired boy, coming back to the--to him--principal subject of discussion, and immediately he climbed up the tree.
Agnes gasped again. "My goodness!" she thought. "I know Sandyface couldn't go up that tree any quicker--not even with Sam Pinkney's bulldog after her."
He was a slim boy and the limbs scarcely bent under his weight--not even when he was in the top of the tree. He seemed to know just how to balance himself, while standing there, and fearlessly used both hands to pick the remaining fruit.
Two of the biggest, handsomest peaches he dropped, one after the other, into the lap of Agnes' thick bath-gown as she held it up before her. The remainder of the fruit he bestowed about his own person, dropping it through the neck of his shirt until the peaches quite swelled out its fullness all about his waist. His trousers were held in place by a stout strap, instead of by suspenders.
He came down from the tree as easily as he had climbed it--and with the peaches intact.
"They must have a fine gymnasium at the school where you go," said Agnes, admiringly.
"I never went to school," said the boy, and blushed again.
Agnes was very curious. She had already established herself on the porch step, wrapped the robe closely around her, shook her two plaits back over her shoulders, and now sunk her teeth into the first peach. With her other hand she beckoned the white-haired boy to sit down beside her.
"Come and eat them," she said. "Breakfast won't be ready for ever and ever so long yet."
The boy removed the peaches he had picked, and made a little pyramid of them on the step. Then he put on his jacket and cap before he accepted her invitation. Meanwhile Agnes was eating the peach and contemplating him gravely.