There was one
exception,--Emily Gaskell's--that stood on the hill, and was painted all
over and had green blinds.
I heard a mighty rushing sound mingled with whoops and yells and the
terrible clamp of running feet, and was made aware that a detachment from
my flock was coming up the lane to meet me.
A girl, taller than I, with stooping shoulders and a piquant and
good-natured cast of features, seized my hand and swung it in childish
and confiding fashion. She had warts. I wondered, uneasily, if they would
be contagious through my gloves.
I was struck with the uncommon beauty of one sturdy little fellow. He was
barefooted (on Cape Cod, in January), and ragged enough to have satisfied
the most crazy devotee of the picturesque. His shapely head was set on
his shoulders in an exceedingly high-bred way, while its bad archangel
effect was intensified by rings of curling black hair and great,
seductive black eyes.
The children walked back, in comparative quiet, toward the school-house,
except this boy. To him care was evidently a thing unknown. He managed,
while keeping the distance undiminished between himself and me, to
perform a great variety of antics, in which, by way of an occasional
relief, his head was seen to rise above his heels.
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