-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 a