The little girl flashed a clear defiance; from a pair of beaming hazel eyes she threw him a scornful challenge. “I bet I can beat you,” she stoutly rejoined. Then as the boy's glance fell upon her hair, her defiance waned. She put on her sunbonnet and drew it down over her brow. “I reckon I can run some,” she finished uneasily.
The boy followed her movements with a candid stare. “You can't hide it,” he taunted; “it shines right through everything. O Lord, ain't I glad my head's not red!”
At this pharisaical thanksgiving the little girl flushed to the ruffled brim of her bonnet. Her sensitive lips twitched, and she sat meekly gazing past the boy at the wall of rough gray stones which skirted a field of ripening wheat. Over the wheat a light wind blew, fanning the even heads of the bearded grain and dropping suddenly against the sunny mountains in the distance. In the nearer pasture, where the long grass was strewn with wild flowers, red and white cattle were grazing beside a little stream, and the tinkle of the cow bells drifted faintly across the slanting sunrays. It was open country, with a peculiar quiet cleanliness about its long white roads and the genial blues and greens of its meadows.
“Ain't I glad, O Lord!” chanted the boy again.
The little girl stirred impatiently, her gaze fluttering from the landscape.
“Old Aunt Ailsey's conjured all the tails off Sambo's sheep,” she remarked, with feminine wile. “I saw 'em hanging on her door.”
“Oh, shucks! she can't conjure!” scoffed the boy. “She's nothing but a free nigger, anyway--and besides, she's plum crazy--”
“I saw 'em hanging on her door,” steadfastly repeated the little girl. “The wind blew 'em right out, an' there they were.”
“Well, they wan't Sambo's sheep tails,” retorted the boy, conclusively, “'cause Sambo's sheep ain't got any tails.”
Brought to bay, the little girl looked doubtfully up and down the turnpike. “Maybe she conjured 'em _on_ first,” she suggested at last.
“Oh, you're a regular baby, Betty,” exclaimed the boy, in disgust. “You'll be saying next that she can make rattlesnake's teeth sprout out of the ground.”
“She's got a mighty funny garden patch,” admitted Betty, still credulous. Then she jumped up and ran along the road. “Here's Virginia!” she called sharply, “an' I beat her! I beat her fair!”