“Off you get at the watering-tank,” he ordained. “The whole pack of you.”
And then, as often follows a mood of high adventure, there fell upon the festive group a moment of pause, of unnatural quiet, of “let down.”
“Well, what're we going to do now?” queried somebody.
“We'll do whatever Missy says,” said Raymond, just as if he were Sir Walter Raleigh speaking of the Virgin Queen. It was a wonder someone didn't start teasing him about her; but everyone was too taken up waiting for Missy to proclaim. She set her very soul vibrating; shut her eyes tightly a moment to think; and, as if in proof that Providence helps them who must help others, almost instantly she opened them again.
Just like that, out of the blue, a quick, unfaltering, almost unconscious cry of the inspired. And, with resounding acclaim, her followers caught it up:
“Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!”--“That's the ticket!”--“We'll have a picnic'.”--“Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!”
Rocky Ford, home of nymphs, water-babies and Indian legend, was only half a mile away. Again it shone in all its old-time romantic loveliness on Missy's inward eye. And for a fact it was a good Maytime picnic place.
That day everything about the spot seemed invested with a special kind of beauty, the kind of beauty you feel so poignantly in stories and pictures but seldom meet face to face in real life. The Indian maiden became a memory you must believe in: she had loved someone and they were parted somehow and she was turned into a swan or something. Off on either side the creek, the woods stretched dim and mysterious; but nearby, on the banks, the little new leaves stirred and sparkled in the sun like green jewels; and the water dribbled and sparkled over the flat white stones of the ford like a million swishing diamonds; and off in the distance there were sounds which may have been birds--or, perhaps, the legendary maiden singing; and, farther away, somewhere, a faint clanging music which must be cow-bells, only they had a remote heavenly quality rare in cow-bells.
And, all the while, the sun beaming down on the ford, intensely soft and bright. Why is it that the sun can seem so much softer and brighter in some places than in others?
Missy felt that soft brightness penetrating deeper and deeper into her being. It seemed a sort of limpid, shining tide flowing through to her very soul; it made her blood tingle, and her soul quiver. And, in some mysterious way, the presence, of Raymond Bonner, consciousness of Raymond--Raymond himself--began to seem all mixed up with this ineffable, surging effulgence. Missy recognized that she had long experienced a secret, strange, shy kind of feeling toward Raymond. He was so handsome and so gay, and his dark eyes told her so plainly that he liked her, and he carried her books home for her despite the fact that the other boys teased him. The other girls had teased Missy, too, so that sometimes she didn't know whether she was more happy or embarrassed over Raymond's admiration.