"But it won't go alone--there must
be a chopper."
"You are right; but it's going to its brother--and one will chop on
this side and another will chop on that side, and then the trees crash
and roar like cannons, and still you will hear nothing of it--and yet
_you_ may, if you wish to, but no one else in this place."
"I don't understand one peck of all your bushel," answered Barefoot.
"Speak out--I'm too old to guess riddles now."
"Well, I'm going to uncle in America."
"Indeed? Going to start to-day?" said Barefoot, laughing. "Do you remember
how Martin, the mason's boy, once called up to his mother through the
window: 'Mother, throw me out a clean pocket-handkerchief--I'm going to
America!' Those who were going to fly so quickly are all still here."
"You'll see how much longer I shall be here," said Damie; and without
another word he went into Coaly Mathew's house.
Barefoot felt like laughing at Damie's ridiculous plan, but she could
not; she felt that there was some meaning in it. And that very night,
when everybody was in bed, she went to her brother and declared once for
all that she would not go with him. She thought thus to conquer him; but
Damie replied quickly:
"I'm not tied to you!" and became the more confirmed in his plan.
Then there suddenly welled up in the girl's mind once more all that
flood of reflections that had come upon her once in her childhood; but
this time she did not ask advice of the tree, as if it could have
answered her.
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