Part 23 (1/2)
”My dear!” she cried. ”You are responsible for my life! I am killed; simply killed, Peggy Montfort. I shall never recover from this awful fatigue, I know I shall not.”
”Nonsense!” said Peggy, briefly. ”Here! sit down here, V., and get your breath; you'll be all right in a minute. It wasn't bad, was it, Rose?”
”It was a bit stiff in one place!” Rose admitted. ”I rather think we took the wrong turn, Peggy. Did you say left, after the big pine?”
”No, right; you didn't come up that bank? Poor little V.! no wonder she thinks she is killed. Let me take your hat off, V., and get you some water or something.”
But Viola refused to part with her hat. She sat panting and crimson, and seemed really exhausted. Peggy eyed her with remorse. ”I couldn't know that you would take the wrong turn, could I?” she said. ”I'm awfully sorry!”
”Oh, but it was fine!” said Ethel Bird. ”How do you find out all these places, Peggy? This is just lovely, isn't it?”
”By looking,” said Peggy. ”I like to poke about, and I came on this the other day. See, here's a little baby spring, trickling right out of the rock here. Isn't it pretty? and the water is clear and cold as ice.
Shall I make you a leaf-cup, Viola? The best way, though, is to put your mouth down and drink, this way.”
”Oh, I never would do that!” cried Clara Fair. ”Why, a snake might go right down your throat, Peggy Montfort; truly it might. There was a man--”
”Oh, don't talk about a man!” cried Rose Barclay. ”How could you, Clara?
You remind me of my German lesson.”
”I never said a word about your German lesson,” said Clara, who was literal and matter-of-fact.
”No, but you reminded me,” said Rose, who was imaginative and poetic.
”All the morning I was saying to myself:
”'Der d.i.c.kere Mann, Des d.i.c.keren Mannes, Dem d.i.c.keren Manne, Den d.i.c.keren Mann.'”
”You seem to have learned it, anyhow,” said Peggy, laughing.
”Oh, but that isn't all!” said Rose. ”There is more horror. It goes on, you know:
”'Die d.i.c.keren Manner, Der d.i.c.keren Manner, Den d.i.c.keren Mannern, Die d.i.c.keren Manner.'”
”I think foreign languages are the silliest things in the world!”
declared Peggy. ”Well, I do! Such perfect foolishness as they talk! I have no patience with them.”
”Well, but Peggy, they aren't foreign when they are at home!” protested Ethel.
”Well, then, I wish they would stay at home. I don't know whether German is so bad, though that sounds awful, all that you said just now, Rose; but I have French; and I have to try to mince and simper, and twist my mouth up into all kinds of shapes, just saying things that are too silly to _be_ said. I wish there was a law that no one in this country should ever speak anything but English. It would be ever so much more sensible.”
”So it would!” a.s.sented Rose. ”I say! what a pity we didn't think to bring something to eat! I'm awfully hungry, walking all this way.”
”All this way, Rose!” said Peggy. ”Why, how far do you think it is?”
”Oh, four or five miles, I'm sure!”
”Well, it isn't two. Look here, girls, what is the reason none of you seem to know how to walk?”
”What do you mean? We have walked, haven't we? Here we are.”
”Oh, you call this a walk! that's just it, I tell you. You walk a mile, or two at the very most, and you think you have done something wonderful; and poor Viola is all tired out, and says she will never come again. Well, but this isn't what _I_ call walking, you know. Why, I went with the Owls the other day, and we walked fifteen miles if we did a step, and it was perfectly glorious. _That's_ what _I_ call walking, and I do wonder how it is that none of you ever learned. You are all strong and well, aren't you?”