Penny Durkin was seated on the steps with a text-book in hand, but Clint noted that Penny’s gaze was fixed on the distance.  The fact acted as a salve for Clint’s conscience.  If Penny couldn’t study today, Penny who had been known to play his fiddle even while he stuffed Greek or Latin or mathematics, surely no one else could rightfully be expected to fix his mind on letter-writing!  Clint halted a moment on the walk and Penny’s gaze and thoughts came back from afar and he blinked up at the other.

“Hi!” said Penny dreamily.

“Hi,” returned Clint.

“Warm, isn’t it?”

“Yes, great.”

“I thought I’d study a little, but I guess I was almost asleep.”

“Day-dreaming,” suggested Clint.  There was a moment’s silence, during which an odd idea occurred to Clint.  He didn’t much care to walk by himself, and he didn’t know where to look for Amy or any of the other fellows who might care to join him.  Why not, then, ask Penny Durkin?  Before he had thoroughly weighed the merits of the scheme he found himself making the suggestion.

“Come on for a walk, Durkin,” he said.  “Bring your old book along if you like.  We’ll find a place in the woods and, as Amy says, commune with Nature.”

Penny looked first surprised and then pleased, and, “I’d love to,” he said.  So they set off together around the corner of Torrence and past the little brick building which held the heating plant and made off across the field.  The sun was gloriously warm and the air was like that of a June day, and after the first minute or two of progress they discovered that they had no inclination toward hurrying, that, in short, they felt decidedly lazy and drowsy, and that the sooner they reached that place in the woods where they were to commune with Nature the pleasanter it would be.

Conversation was fitful.  Penny spoke hesitantly of Clint’s good work in yesterday’s game, ventured a vague prediction that Brimfield would win from Claflin on Saturday and then seemed to fall asleep.  Clint made no effort to arouse him and presently they climbed over the stone wall that divided the school property from the woodland and made their way through the trees until they were half-way up the slope.  There, in the lee of an outcropping grey ledge of weathered granite, they subsided on a bed of leaves with sighs of contentment.  Through the nearer trees and above the more distant ones, they could see the further side of the field and the sunlit buildings.

“I reckon,” said Clint, propping his shoulders against a convenient surface of the ledge, “this is the place we were looking for.  Now, bring on your Nature and we’ll commune.”

“I used to come up here when I was a First Former,” said Penny.  “Two or three of us kids would sneak stuff from dining hall and build a fire back of this rock and picnic.  One day we went off and forgot about the fire and that night someone looked over and saw a blaze and they had to fight it for almost an hour with brooms and buckets of water.  We had a fine time!  Everyone turned out.  We never told what we knew about it, though!” And Penny smiled reminiscently.