He introduced Dill to four or five men whom he thought might be congenial, left him talking solemnly with a man who at some half-forgotten period had come from Michigan, and wandered aimlessly on through the grove.  Fellows there were in plenty whom he knew, but he passed them with a brief word or two.  Truth to tell, for the most part they were otherwise occupied and had no time for him.

He loitered over to the swing, saw that the enthusiasts who were making so much noise were all youngsters under fifteen or so and that they hailed his coming with a joy tinged with self-interest.  He rose to the bait of one dark-eyed miss who had her hair done in two braids crossed and tied close to her head with red-white-and-blue ribbon, and who smiled alluringly and somewhat toothlessly and remarked that she liked to go ’way, ’way up till it most turned over, and that it didn’t scare her a bit.  He swung her almost into hysterics and straightway found himself exceedingly popular with other braided-and-tied young misses.  Charming Billy never could tell afterward how long or how many he swung ’way, ’way up; he knew that he pushed and pushed until his arms ached and the hair on his forehead became unpleasantly damp under his hat.

“That’ll just about have to do yuh, kids,” he rebelled suddenly and left them, anxiously patting his hair and generally resettling himself as he went.  Once more in a dispirited fashion he threaded the crowd, which had grown somewhat larger, side-stepped a group which called after him, and went on down to the creek.

“I’m about the limit, I guess,” he told himself irritably.  “Why the dickens didn’t I have the sense and nerve to ride over and ask her straight out if she was coming?  I coulda drove her over, maybe—­if she’d come with me.  I coulda took the bay team and top-buggy, and done the thing right.  I coulda—­hell, there’s a heap uh things I coulda done that would uh been a lot more wise than what I did do!  Maybe she ain’t coming at all, and—­”

On the heels of that he saw a spring-wagon, come rattling down the trail across the creek.  There were two seats full, and two parasols were bobbing seductively, and one of them was blue.  “I’ll bet a dollar that’s them now,” murmured Billy, and once more felt anxiously of his hair where it had gone limp under his hat.  “Darned kids—­they’d uh kept me there till I looked like I’d been wrassling calves half a day,” went with the patting.  He turned and went briskly through an empty and untrampled part of the grove to the place where the wagon would be most likely to stop.  “I’m sure going to make good to-day or—­” And a little farther—­“What if it ain’t them?”

Speedily he discovered that it was “them,” and at the same time he discovered something else which pleased him not at all.  Dressed with much care, so that even Billy must reluctantly own him good-looking enough, and riding so close to the blue parasol that his horse barely escaped grazing a wheel, was the Pilgrim.  He glared at Billy in unfriendly fashion and would have shut him off completely from approach to the wagon; but a shining milk can, left carelessly by a bush, caught the eye of his horse, and after that the Pilgrim was very busy riding erratically in circles and trying to keep in touch with his saddle.