htened the clasp of her
arms. "It's been so dreadfully long! I thought maybe--I'd forgotten----"

And Little-Dad had not changed a bit, nor the house, nor the garden, nor
Bigboy--not a thing, Jerry had found on an excited round. The old lilac
bushes were in full leaf, the syringas were in blossom, there were still
daffodils in the corner near the fir-tree gate; glossy, spiky leaves
marked a row of onions just where her onions had always
grown--Little-Dad had put in her seed; the sun slanted in gold-brown
bars across the bare floor of the familiar, low-ceilinged living-room,
softening to a ruddy glow the bindings of the familiar books everywhere.
Her own little room was just as she had left it. Oh, the wonder, the joy
of coming back! How different it would have been if there _had_ been any
change. What if Sweetheart--she rushed headlong to hug her mother again.

Then there was the fun of taking Gyp and Isobel everywhere. They were
genuinely enraptured with all her favorite haunts; the magic of Kettle
caught them just as it had caught Uncle Johnny that day he ran away from
his guide. Every morning they were up with the birds and off over the
trail to return laden with the treasures of Kettle, wild strawberries,
lingering trillium, wild currant blossoms, moist baby ferns. Together
these girls brought to quiet Sunnyside a gaiety it had not known before.
To Mrs. Westley, after her lonely winter, it was as though a radiant
summer sun had flooded suddenly through a gray mist.

And Jerry had to tell her mother everything that had happened all
through the winter. She saved it all for such moments as she and her
mother stole to wander off together; it was easier to talk to mother
alone, and then there were so many things she wanted only mother to
know--concerning most of them she had written, to be sure, but she liked
to think it all over again, herself--those first days of school, the
classes, the teachers, the Ravens, basketball and hockey and that
never-to-be-forgotten day at Haskin's Hill, the Everett party, the two
"real plays," the great vaulted church where music floated from hidden
pipes--only concerning the debate and that stormy evening when she had
discarded her "charity" clothes did she keep silent. School, school,
school; Mrs. Westley, listening intently, smiling wistfully at her big
girl, in spirit lived with her through each experience, happy or trying,
rejoicing that she had had them. And yet in her eyes there li