“This tree!” she indicated briefly, reaching up; and her hand was white even among the milky orange bloom—­he noticed that as he bent down a laden bough for her.

“Pine-oranges,” she said, “the most delicious of all.  I’ll pick and you hold the branch.  And please get me a few tangerines—­those blood-tangerines up there....  Thank you; and two Japanese persimmons—­and two more for yourself....  Have you a knife?  Very well; now, break a fan from that saw-palmetto and sweep a place for me on the ground—­that way.  And now please look very carefully to see if there are any spiders.  No spiders?  No scorpions?  No wood-ticks?  Are you sure?”

“There may be a bandersnatch,” he said doubtfully, dusting the ground with his palmetto fan.

She laughed and seated herself on the ground, drew down her short white tennis-skirt as far as it would go over her slim ankles, looked up at him confidently, holding out her hand for his knife.

“We are going to be delightfully messy in a moment,” she said; “let me show you how they prepare an orange in Florida.  This is for you—­you must take it....  And this is for me.  The rind is all gone, you see.  Now, Ulysses.  This is the magic moment!”

And without further ceremony her little teeth met in the dripping golden pulp; and in another moment Hamil was imitating her.

They appeared to be sufficiently hungry; the brilliant rind, crinkling, fell away in golden corkscrews from orange after orange, and still they ate on, chattering away together between oranges.

“Isn’t this primitive luxury, Mr. Hamil?  We ought to wear our bathing-clothes....  Don’t dare take my largest king-orange!  Yes—­you may have it;—­I won’t take it....  Are you being amused?  My father said that you were to be amused.  What in the world are you staring at?”

“That!” said Hamil, eyes widening.  “What on earth—­”

“Oh, that’s nothing—­that is our watchman.  We have to employ somebody to watch our groves, you know, or all the negroes in Florida would be banqueting here.  So we have that watchman yonder—­”

“But it’s a bird!” insisted Hamil, “a big gray, long-legged, five-foot bird with a scarlet head!”

“Of course,” said the girl serenely; “it’s a crane.  His name is Alonzo; he’s four feet high; and he’s horridly savage.  If you came in here without father or me or some of the workmen who know him, Alonzo would begin to dance at you, flapping his wings, every plume erect; and if you didn’t run he’d attack you.  That big, dagger-like bill of his is an atrocious weapon.”

The crane resembled a round-shouldered, thin-legged old gentleman with his hands tucked under his coat-tails; and as he came up, tiptoeing and peering slyly at Hamil out of two bright evil-looking eyes, the girl raised her arm and threw a kum-quat at him so accurately that the bird veered off with a huge hop of grieved astonishment.