I looks up, and that was how I got ac-quainted with Martha. She was eating one herself, setting up in the tree like a boy.
In her lap was a book she had been reading. She was leaning back into the fork two limbs made so as not to tumble.
"Well," I says, "can I have one?"
"You've eaten it already," she says, "so there isn't any use begging for it now."I seen she was a tease, that girl, and I would of give anything to of been able to tease her right back agin. But I couldn't think of nothing to say, so I jest stands there kind o' dumb like, thinking what a dern purty girl she was, and thinking how dumb I must look, and I felt my face getting red.
Doctor Kirby would of thought of something to say right off. And after I got back to camp I would think of something myself. But I couldn't think of nothing bright, so I says:
"Well, then, you give me another one!"
She gives the core of the one she has been eating a toss at me. But I ketched it, and made like Iwas going to throw it back at her real hard. She slung up her arm, and dodged back, and she dropped her book.
I thinks to myself I'll learn that girl to get sassy and make me feel like a dumb-head, even if she is purty. So I don't say a word. I jest picks up that book and sticks it under my arm and walks away slow with it to where they was a stump a little ways off, not fur from the crick, and sets down with my back to her and opens it. And I was trying all the time to think of something smart to say to her. But I couldn't of done it if I was to be shot. Still, I thinks to myself, no girl can sass me and not get sassed back, neither.
I hearn a scramble behind me which I knowed was her getting out of that tree. And in a minute she was in front of me, mad.
"Give me my book," she says.
But I only reads the name of the book out loud, fur to aggervate her. I had on purty good duds, but I kind of wisht I had on my Injun rig then.
You take the girls that always comes down to see the passenger train come into the depot in them country towns and that Injun rig of mine and Looey's always made 'em turn around and look at us agin. I never wisht I had on them Injun duds so hard before in my life. But I couldn't think of nothing bright to say, so I jest reads the name of that book over to myself agin, kind o' grinning like I got a good joke I ain't going to tell any one.
"You give me my book," she says agin, red as one of them harvest apples, "or I'll tell Miss Hamp-ton you stole it and she'll have you and your show arrested."I reads the name agin. It was "The Lost Heir."I seen I had her good and teased now, so I says:
"It must be one of these here love stories by the way you take on over it.""It's not," she says, getting ready to cry. "And what right have you got in our wood-lot, anyhow?""Well," I says, "I was jest about to move on and climb out of it when you hollered to me from that tree.""I didn't!" she says. But she was mad because she knowed she HAD spoke to me first, and she was awful sorry she had.
"I thought I hearn you holler," I says, "but I guess it must of been a squirrel." I said it kind o' sarcastic like, fur I was still mad with myself fur being so dumb when we first seen each other.
I hadn't no idea it would hurt her feelings as hard as it did. But all of a sudden she begins to wink, and her chin trembled, and she turned around short, and started to walk off slow. She was mad with herself fur being ketched in a lie, and she was wondering what I would think of her fur being so bold as to of spoke first to a feller she didn't know.
I got up and follered her a little piece. And it come to me all to oncet I had teased her too hard, and I was down on myself fur it.
"Say," I says, kind of tagging along beside of her, "here's your old book."But she didn't make no move to take it, and her hands was over her face, and she wouldn't pull 'em down to even look at it.
So I tried agin.
"Well," I says, feeling real mean, "I wisht you wouldn't cry. I didn't go to make you do that."She drops her hands and whirls around on me, mad as a wet hen right off.
"I'm not! I'm not!" she sings out, and stamps her feet. "I'm not crying!" But jest then she loses her holt on herself and busts out and jest natcherally bellers. "I hate you!" she says, like she could of killed me.
That made me kind of dumb agin. Fur it come to me all to oncet I liked that girl awful well. And here I'd up and made her hate me. I held the book out to her agin and says:
"Well, I'm mighty sorry fur that, fur I don't feel that-a-way about you a-tall. Here's your book."Well, sir, she snatches that book and she gives it a sling. I thought it was going kersplash into the crick. But it didn't. It hit right into the fork of a limb that hung down over the crick, and it all spread out when it lit, and stuck in that crotch somehow. She couldn't of slung it that way on purpose in a million years. We both stands and looks at it a minute.
"Oh, oh!" she says, "what have I done? It's out of the town library and I'll have to pay for it.""I'll get it fur you," I says. But it wasn't no easy job. If I shook that limb it would tumble into the crick. But I clumb the tree and eased out on that limb as fur as I dast to. And, of course, jest as I got holt of the book, that limb broke and I fell into the crick. But I had the book.
It was some soaked, but I reckoned it could still be read.
I clumb out and she was jest splitting herself laughing at me. The wet on her face where she had cried wasn't dried up yet, and she was laughing right through it, kind o' like the sun does to one of these here May rainstorms sometimes, and she was the purtiest girl I ever seen. Gosh!--how Iwas getting to like that girl! And she told me Ilooked like a drowned rat.
Well, that was how Martha and me was inter-duced. She wasn't more'n sixteen, and when she found out I was a orphan she was glad, fur she was one herself. Which Miss Hampton that lived in that house had took her to raise. And when Itells her how I been travelling around the country all summer she claps her hands and she says:
"Oh, you are on a quest! How romantic!"
I asts her what is a quest. And she tells me.
