“I’ve wandered to the village, Tom,
       I’ve sat beneath the tree,
     Upon that schoolhouse playground,
       That sheltered you and me. 
     But few were there to greet me, Tom,
      And few were left we know,
     Who played with us upon the green,
       Just twenty years ago.”

“I’ll never forget it as long as I live, Cousin Roxy,” Kit declared, fervently; “talk about the twanging of heart strings; why, it seemed to me as though I could just feel the way you all felt as you sat there.  It was the queerest thing, because Mrs. Peckham is stout and getting gray, and yet when she got up to recite she actually looked like a plump little girl with her brown eyes and rosy cheeks.  And Deacon Simmons was as boyish as could be, when he stood there blushing and reading his class paper on ‘Old Friendships.’”

“Well, child,” said Mrs. Ellis, “I’m glad that you could see a little of the glory that gave light to us.  You’ll find out as you grow older and stand upon life’s hills of rest that the days of childhood and going to school are the sweetest and best that life gives to you.  I don’t mind saying that I love every clapboard in the little old red schoolhouse, and when I read in a magazine the other day that such things were a thing of the past I wanted to call out that it wasn’t any such thing.  We had one right here at our crossroads over a hundred and thirty years old, and still turning out its hundred per cent. graduates.”

The next morning, just after Shad had gone whistling up to the barn, Doris spied a familiar figure coming along the side drive towards the well sweep, and leaned out of the window, calling with all her heart: 

“Hello, Billie!”

Billie waved back with a cheery greeting that brought the other girls hurrying to the window, too.

“The camp’s immense,” he said.  “We got in late last night and I knew the way down, so we didn’t disturb anybody.  Even found the old boat in the same place, Kit.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have if I hadn’t hauled it there, where I knew you could lay your hand right on it.  I rather thought it would be just like you to arrive by the light of the moon and try to swim over.”

Billie chuckled.  He knew from old, past experience that Kit’s scoldings didn’t amount to any more than the perturbed clucking of a hen.  They had brought up a load of supplies with them, but huckleberry pancakes with honey lured them both up for breakfast that first morning.  And even Kit was silent as Stanley related all of his adventures during the year.  It seemed to her that she had never really looked at him before, that is, to get the best impression, without prejudice.  Somehow, he looked younger and more boyish this year, anyway, in his camper’s low-necked sport shirt and khaki riding breeches.  Kit noted for the first time his crispy, curly yellow hair, and long, half-closed blue eyes, that always seemed to be laughing at you.  He had dimples, too, and these Kit resented.