as black as the soft-coal kind."

When he looked at himself a moment later in the mirror of the spring,
Oliver realized that he was scarcely fit to start on a journey, since,
in his energetic wielding of the smoker he had smudged his face far
worse than even Polly had. He began splashing and scrubbing, but honey
and soot and the odd, sticky glue with which bees smear their hives
are none of them easy to remove. When he presented himself once more
at the door of the cottage, there was a feast spread out on the rough
table--buttered and toasted biscuits spread with honey, iced cocoa
with whipped cream, and a big square chocolate cake. Quite suddenly he
remembered how far he had walked and how hungry he was and with equal
suddenness forgot his pressing necessity for setting off again. He sat
down on the three-legged stool that the Beeman offered him, sampled
the hot biscuit and the cold drink, and breathed a deep, involuntary
sigh of content. In the presence of these friendly, shabbily dressed
strangers he felt, for the first time since leaving home, really happy
and at ease.

It seemed dark and cool within the little cottage after the blazing
sunshine outside. The place was evidently no longer used for anything
but a storehouse and a shelter for picnics of this kind, but it was a
quaint, attractive little dwelling and evidently very old. The main
room where they sat had a big-beamed ceiling, deep casement windows,
and a door that swung open in two sections, one above the other. The
upper half was wide open now, framing a sun-bathed picture of the
green slope, the treetops of the orchard, and the rising hills
opposite, with a narrow glimpse of sparkling, blue sea. The air was
very hot and quiet, with the sleepy peacefulness that belongs to
summer afternoons. The round, dense shadow of the oak tree above them
was lengthening so that its cool tip just touched the doorstone.

Polly, with hands as brown and skillful as her father's, was still
toasting biscuits before the little fire they had built on the rough
hearth. The Beeman, having taken off his hat, showed a handsome,
cheery face much like his daughter's, except that his big nose was
straight, rather than tilted like her small one, and his eyes were
gray. Their clothes were even older and shabbier than Oliver had at
first observed, but their manners were so easy and cordial that the
whole of the little house seemed filled with the pleasant atmosphere
of friendliness.