The sailor hat bobbed, merrily, down the stream, scorning each friendly
brown boulder that would have stopped it, and dodging every drooping
bough that would have held it back. For was not its legend of H. M. S.
Daring, and must not the honour of Britain's navy be manfully
maintained?
Tommy sat peacefully just above the bathing pool, munching his
sandwiches, and letting the clear water trickle across his toes, very
much contented with himself, and, consequently, with his environment
also.
"Oh please--my hat," said a pathetic voice.
Tommy turned round, and on the path behind him stood the little girl,
who had passed, a short while before.
She was quite breathless, and her hair was very tangled, as it crept
about her cheeks, and hung over her brow.
Her hands were clasped, and she looked at Tommy, appealingly.
Tommy surveyed the hat, which had swung into the pool.
"It's too deep, just there, for me to go in, with my clothes on," he
said.
"But there's a shallow part a little way down, and I'll go for it there.
Come on."
He jumped up, and crammed his stockings and shoes into his pockets, as
they ran down the path, beside the brook.
"How did you lose it?" he asked.
"I was climbing a tree--and--and the wind blowed it off."
"Oh!"
"My governess is reading a book, about half a mile up the stream, where
the poplars are."
"Oh!"
Tommy felt strangely tongue-tied--a new and wholly perplexing
experience. He was relieved when they arrived at the shallows, and waded
carefully into the stream.
As the hat sailed down, he dexterously caught it, and came back in
triumph.
"Oh, thank you so much. I hope you aren't very wet."
Tommy examined the upturned edge of his knickerbockers, and then looked
into a pair of wide black eyes.
"Not a bit, hardly," he said, and he thought her cheeks were redder than
any he had seen. He did not, as a rule, approve of girls, but he felt
that there was a kindred spirit twinkling behind those black eyes.
"I think I must go back," said she.
"Wh--what is your name?" stammered Tommy, with a curious desire to
prolong the time.
She laughed.
"I think you might tell me yours."
"I got your hat for you."
"You liked getting it."
"You'd have lost it, if I hadn't gone in."
"No, I shouldn't. I could have got it myself. I'm not afraid."
Tommy capitulated.
"They call me Tommy Wideawake," he said.
"What a funny name. I thought you looked rather sleepy, when I saw you
on the bank just now."
"You looked jolly untidy," retorted Tommy irrelevantly.
"Are you the browny whitey colonel's son?"
Tommy spoke with aroused dignity.
"You must not call my father names," he said.
"I'm not. I think he's a splendid brave man, and I always call him that,
because his face is so brown and his moustache and hair so very white."
Tommy blushed. Then he said very slowly, and with some hesitation, for
to no one before had he confided so much:
"I think he is the bravest--the bravest officer in the whole army."
Then his eyes fell, and he looked confusedly at his toes.
The stream was rippling softly over the shallows, full of its young
dream.