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Sparrow
iT WAS HIGH SUMMER.On the slopes the berry bushes showed the bare nubs where the children had passed through picking, and here and there an unripe cluster still hung, or a few overlooked under the leaves. In the woods the ferns had long since uncurled and the fronds sprang up cool and graceful. The deep greens of summer were misted over here and there in the fields and hedgerows with purple and yellow of phlox and toadflax, the dull white of yarrow and Queen Anne’s lace. The hedges were alive with bees in the blossoms, and with the carefree small birds, whose broods were raised. The road to the village of Drury was dusty, as it drove straight through the meadows, curved down a small hill, over the stone bridge, passed along the river valley into the woods, and came out to the cluster of dwellings and shops and the Black Pigeon Inn on the far side.
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man. “The river is at peace, by some miracle, and there is such a glow in the sky that I can see the way easily.” He laid the child gently on the deck and seized the pole again, thrusting the craft off from the shore and pushing with sure strokes across stream till they lodged on the bank. Then he stooped and gathered up the wet and shivering child, hurried up the bank, and carried the light body home.
There he laid him on a pallet by the fire and stripped him of his wet clothes, wrapped him in his warm cloak, and tenderly wiped away the streak of blood from a long scratch across his brow. The child slept quietly then, and the ferryman knelt by his side for a long while, gazing into his face. Then at length he sighed and became aware of his own aching weariness; he sank down on his cot, and slept.
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