The choruses were all over the
village at all times of the day and night after study hours, and
John specially had to look after his decorum in their presence. But
it was only Philip.
"Seems to me it would be pleasanter," he remarked without preface,
"if Angela and I had parts in this play. Angela thinks so, too."
"Where is Angela?" asked Joy idly.
"I put her up a tree," said Philip. "She's playing she's a little
birdie. You haven't got any candy that we could play was worms, have
you, Johnny?" he finished insinuatingly.
But John and Joy had heard a wail in the direction whence Philip had
come, and neither of them stopped to reply. Angela alone and up a
tree was a picture that had appalling possibilities, and she was
certainly crying as if the worst of them had happened.
The wails seemed to come from the little pleasance where the
fountain was, and Joy, as she ran, had a vision of a tree which
Philip did climb with a ladder, and which he was quite capable of
making Angela climb, too. The drop from his favorite limb was quite
six feet.
Joy reached the pleasance first. It was Angela who was shrieking,
but the worst had not quite happened. She had wriggled herself out
of the safe crotch where Philip had put her, and it was Heaven's
mercy that she had not fallen. But her frock was a stout blue
gingham, fortunately, and a projecting branch-stump was thrust
through it, holding her in a horizontal position along the bough.
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