[Picture: “She ran out to meet me,” he cried] The two children turned their faces down an unknown road, overhung with great chestnuts and lindens, and cut into deep gulleys by the rains. The way looked lonely and beautiful and strange and Azalea felt her heart beating a little faster than usual. She was just going to say to Jim that they’d probably get lost, when something ran swiftly across their path. “An adder!” cried Jim. “A gray adder! That’s the poisonest snake that lives anywhere here about. Don’t you go fooling with snakes like that, Zalie, whatever you do. Why, once I teased a gray adder till he got so mad he bit himself. And in three minutes he was dead.” “Honest?” “Honest! You say you’re sorry for snakes—I like ’em to kill!—but don’t you fool none around an adder.” “You didn’t try to kill that one.” “Well, if I hadn’t been going for a good time, I would. Somehow, when I’m going out for a good time, I don’t like to begin by killing something.” Azalea laughed lightly, and the two went on along the shady road. Twice they crossed creeks—amber-colored, rippling streams that sang over the stones. One they jumped across; the other was too wide for that, but they found a narrow swinging bridge a little way upstream. “Don’t it seem strange to think that there used to be people and people going along here,” mused Azalea, “and now almost no one comes here!” Jim nodded. He hadn’t much time to think about things like that. He was wondering what he would find at the Atherton house. After a time they came to a sunny piece of road, and along the side a clay bank punctured with little holes. “Oh, doodle bug holes!” cried Jim. “Come, let’s get the doodle bugs out.” So the two children got down on their knees and blew into the holes where the bugs lived and called three times: “Doodle bug, come out of your hole!” And the doodle bugs came out politely, and ran about this way and that as if looking for the person who had called them. “I spose we’re too large for them to see,” said Azalea. They had been told to keep their lunch until noon, but they felt so hungry—at least Jim did—that they decided to eat it at once. So they got out the cold biscuit spread with honey and the bottle of milk and the cornbread sandwiches with the bacon between and ate it all. Not a scrap did they leave. Then they took a long drink of spring water and started on again. “It’s about ten o’clock,” said Azalea. “By noon we’ll be hungry again, and by four o’clock we’ll be starved to death. Pa and ma will come along and find two heaps of bones at the Old Green Place, and they’ll never know it’s us, and they’ll go up the mountain weeping and gnashing their teeth.” Jim looked at her admiringly. “I don’t see how you think of so many things to say, Zalie. I can’t think of things to say.” “Then take me along with you wherever you go, Jimmy.” “All right,” said he. At last they got in sight of the Atherton estate. Jim saw it first.