Page:A Girl of the Limberlost.djvu/331

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THE LIMBERLOST SINGS
311

"That sounds like they might be the only one, or close to it," said EInora, "and, indeed, they are not. I know dozens. Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wesley are another, the Brownlees another, and my mathematics professor and his wife. The world is full of happy people, but no one ever hears of them. You have to fight and make a scandal to get into the papers. No one knows about all the happy people. I am happy myself, and just look how perfectly inconspicuous I am."

"You only need go where you will be seen," began Ammon, when he remembered and finished. "What do we take to-day?"

"Ourselves," said Elnora. "I have a vagabond streak in my blood and it's in evidence. I am going to show you where real flowers grow, real birds sing, and if I feel quite right about it, perhaps I shall raise a note or two myself."

"Oh, do you sing?" asked Ammon politely.

"At times," answered Elnora. "'As do the birds, because I must,' but don't be scared. The mood does not possess me often. Perhaps I shan't raise a note when we get there."

They went down the road to the swamp, climbed the snake fence, followed the path to the old trail and then turned south along it. Elnora indicated to Ammon the trail with remnants of sagging barbed wire.

"It was ten years ago," she said. "I was just a little schoolgirl, but I wandered widely even then, and no one cared. I saw him often. He had been in a city institution all his life, when he took the job of keeping tim-