Blue-Bird Weather

"That's a nice boy," said Marche briefly, and glanced up to see in his

sister's face the swift and exquisite transformation that requires no

words as answer.

"You seem to like him," said he, laughing.

Molly Herold's gray eyes softened; pride, that had made the love in

them brilliant, faded until they grew almost sombre. Silent, her aloof

gaze remained fixed on the horizon; her lips rested on each other in

sensitive curves. There was no sound save the curling of foam under the

bows.

Marche looked elsewhere; then looked at her again. She sat motionless,

gray eyes remote, one little, wind-roughened hand on the tiller. The

steady breeze filled the sail; the dory stood straight away toward the

blinding glory of the sunrise.

Through the unreal golden light, raft after raft of wild ducks rose and

whirled into the east; blue herons flopped across the water; a

silver-headed eagle, low over the waves, winged his way heavily toward

some goal, doggedly intent upon his own business.

Outside Starfish Shoal the girl eased the sheet as the wind freshened.

Far away on Golden Bar thousands of wild geese, which had been tipping

their sterns skyward in plunging quest of nourishment, resumed a more

stately and normal posture, as though at a spoken command; and the long

ranks, swimming, and led by age and wisdom, slowly moved away into the

glittering east.

At last, off the starboard bow, the low, reedy levels of Foam Island

came into view, and in a few minutes more the dory lay in the shallows,

oars, mast, and rag stowed; and the two young people splashed busily

about in their hip boots, carrying guns, ammunition, and food into the

blind.

Then Molly Herold, standing on the mud bank, flung, one by one, a

squadron of wooden, painted, canvasback decoys into the water, where

they righted themselves, and presently rode the waves, bobbing and

steering with startling fidelity to the real things.

Then it came the turn of the real things. Marche and Molly, a struggling

bird tucked under each arm, waded out along the lanes of stools, feeling

about under the icy water until their fingers encountered the wire-cored

cords. Then, to the leg rings of each madly flapping duck and swan and

goose they snapped on the leads, and the tethered birds, released, beat

the water into foam and flapped and splashed and tugged, until, finally

reconciled, they began to souse themselves with great content, and

either mounted their stools or swam calmly about as far as their tethers

permitted.

Marche, struggling knee-deep in the water, his arms full of wildly

flapping gander, hailed Molly for instructions.