"And do you wander alone all over the mountain?" "Oh, no--just on this side of Kettle. Once a guide and a man from the Wayside disappeared there beyond Sleepy Hollow and that's why they call it Devil's Hole. Little-Dad made me promise never to go beyond the turn from Sunrise trail. I'd like to, too. But there are lots of jolly tramps this side. This"--waving her hand--"is the Witches' Glade and that"--nodding at the rock against which the man leaned--"is the Wishing-rock." John Westley, who back home manufactured cement-mixers, suddenly felt that he had wakened into a world of make-believe. He turned and looked at the rock--it was very much like a great many other rocks all over the mountainside and yet--there _was_ something different! Jerry giggled and clasped her very brown hands around her leather-clad knees. "I name everything on this side--no one from Wayside ever comes this way, you see. I've played here since I was ever so little. I've always pretended that fairies lived in the mountains." She leveled serious eyes upon him. "They _must_! You know it's _magic_ the way things--_are_--here!" John Westley nodded. "I understand--you climb and you think you're on top and then there's lots higher up and you slide down and you think you're in the valley and you come out on a spot--like this--with all the world below you still." "Mustn't it have been _fun_ to make it all?" Jerry's eyes gleamed. "And such beautiful things grow everywhere and the colors are _so_ different! And the woodsy glens and ravines--they're so mysterious. I've heard the trees talk! And the brooks--why, they _can't_ be just nothing but brooks, they're so--so--_alive_!" "Oh, yes," John Westley was plainly convinced. "Fairies _must_ live in the mountains!" "Of course I know now--I'm fourteen--that there are no such things as fairies but it's fun to pretend. But I still call this my Wishing-rock and I come here and stand on it and wish--only there aren't so awfully many things to wish for that you don't just ask Little-Dad for--big things, you know." "Miss Jerry, you were wishing when I--arrived!" She colored. "I was. Little-Dad says I ought to be a very happy girl and I am, but I guess everybody always has something real _big_ that they think they want more than anything else." John Westley inclined his head gravely. "I guess everybody does, Jerry. I think that's what keeps us going on in the race. Does it spoil your wish--to tell about it?" "Oh, my, yes!" Then she laughed. "Only I suppose it couldn't because there aren't really fairies." "What _were_ you wishing?" He asked it coaxingly, in his eyes a deep interest.