“It’s very warm!” I said as I picked a stalk of fire-weed.

What was there about the girl which so thrilled me with happiness?

She turned away and felt the ribbon by which her hair was gathered at the back of her head.

I wanted to kiss her as I had done years before, but I was afraid.

She turned suddenly and said to me: 

“A penny for your thoughts.”

“You won’t laugh at me?”

“No.”

“I was thinking how beautiful you are and how homely I am.”

“You are not homely.  I like your eyes and your teeth are as white and even as they can be and you are a big, brave boy, too.”

Oh, the vanity of youth!  I had never been so happy as then.

“I don’t believe I’m brave,” I said, blushing as we walked along beside the wheat-fields that were just turning yellow.  “I was terribly scared that night—­honest I was!”

“But you didn’t run away.”

“I didn’t think of it or I guess I would have.”

After a moment of silence I ventured: 

“I guess you’ve never fallen in love.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Who with?”

“I don’t think I dare tell you,” she answered, slowly, looking down as she walked.

“I’ll tell you who I love if you wish,” I said.

“Who?”

“You.”  I whispered the word and was afraid she would laugh at me, but she didn’t.  She stopped and looked very serious and asked: 

“What makes you think you love me?”

“Well, when you go away I shall think an’ think about you an’ feel as I do when the leaves an’ the flowers are all gone an’ I know it’s going to be winter, an’ I guess next Sunday Shep an’ I will go down to the brook an’ come back through the meadow, an’ I’ll kind o’ think it all over—­what you said an’ what I said an’ how warm the sun shone an’ how purty the wheat looked, an’ I guess I’ll hear that little bird singing.”

We stopped and listened to the song of a bird—­I do not remember what bird it was—­and then she whispered: 

“Will you love me always and forever?”

“Yes,” I answered in the careless way of youth.

She stopped and looked into my eyes and I looked into hers.

“May I kiss you?” I asked, and afraid, with cheeks burning.

She turned away and answered:  “I guess you can if you want to.”

Now I seem to be in Aladdin’s tower and to see her standing so red and graceful and innocent in the sunlight, and that strange fire kindled by our kisses warms my blood again.

It was still play, although not like that of the grand ladies and the noble gentlemen in which we had once indulged, but still it was play—­the sweetest and dearest kind of play which the young may enjoy, and possibly, also, the most dangerous.

She held my hand very tightly as we went on and I told her of my purpose to be a great man.