In a little clearing he built a fire while the little girl watched him, and put his fish to cook, and then they spread out the lunch on a big white cloth on a rock the boy showed them, and they had a great laugh over the bugs and ants that kept coming to dinner with them. The boy ate lunch with them, carving his fish proudly with a big jackknife and serving the biggest portions to his guests, saying he didn’t care for fish anyhow, he could get it whenever he wanted it. But he ate the sandwiches and little pies and cakes hungrily, and watched the little girl with shy, furtive glances. Afterwards he washed the dishes for them in the brook and packed them back in the basket, then curled down at Aunt Mary’s feet while she went on reading. Oh, the memory of that long, beautiful afternoon among the pines, with the sun sifting down through the leaves and the taller trees waving way up almost touching the sky it seemed, and the drone of bees somewhere, the distant whetting of a scythe--how it all came back as she thought it over! And then the book was finished and they sat back, sorry it was done, dreamy with the loveliness of the story in which they had been absorbed. “That’s a cracker-jack tale,” declared the boy. “Gee, I’d like to have that dog. My dog died,” he ended sadly. “Got run over by a truck.” They talked a little about the dog and the boy got out a dirty little snap shot of himself with the dog in his arms when it was only a little puppy, and the little girl smiled and said it was a darling. Then somehow Aunt Mary led them around to talk of other things, of how still it was in the woods, and how beautiful, and how God must love it there. The boy’s face grew sober and wistful and wonder came in his eyes with a kind of softness. Aunt Mary got out her little Testament and read the story of the healing of the man who was born blind, in the ninth chapter of John. How they thrilled to the story all the way through, as the different actors came and went, the blind man himself, his wondering neighbors, the scornful Jews, the cowardly parents, Jesus, who came to find him after they had all left him, even down to the words that Jesus spoke to the fault-finding Jews: “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.” How strange that those words should sound even after these years, with the murmuring of the pines among the words, and the holy stillness afterward, while the shadows grew long and violet within the sanctuary of trees where they sat, and dusk was all about them. The boy’s lashes drooped thoughtfully and his whole face took on a far-away look. Then Aunt Mary’s voice came again softly praying: “Dear Jesus, we know You are here today just as then. Help us for Christ’s sake to have our eyes open to sin, so that we shall always know when we are not pleasing Thee. Amen.”