As I finished my last bit, assisted by Lark, who has a sweet tooth, I said half to myself, “We’ve certainly been a-Maying, but I wonder did we play _make believe_, or are we really children who have found the Tree of Life.” Evan echoed, “I wonder,” and straightway spread more honey on his bread. VI WIND IN THE GRASS =JUNE=—THE MOON OF STRAWBERRIES “The Boy will go back to his mother’s people of course, and then at last, Ernest, you will be free to carry out our plans,” said Eileen’s clear voice, in which there was an unconscious note of uncertainty mingled with expectancy. As she spoke, she gave her slender fishing rod an unnecessary jerk that meshed line and hook in the tendrils of an overhanging grape-vine. Without speaking, her companion secured his own pole in a crotched tree, and swinging out over the stream that rushed noisily past, quickly disentangled the line; then, taking the rod from Eileen, he reeled up the line and cast the fly deftly into the quiet pool below. Twice he framed his lips to answer her question, but those two innocent words, _our plans_, seemed to stop his voice; at his third essay, his line played out swiftly while the reel sang the tune that the fisherman loves. Then, after a short, exciting bit of play, a splendid brook trout, more than a pound in weight, lay upon the moss beside Eileen. “There is a King trout for you,” Ernest said; “could anything more beautiful come out of the water?” and he made a fresh cast still farther down the pool. Eileen’s first glance of admiration changed as she watched the trout quiver. “Put it back, please,” she cried; “now it’s a fairy thing, and more beautiful than any jewels I ever saw; but as soon as the water dries away it will only be a dead fish to be cooked and eaten. I love to catch fish, it’s so exciting, but not to keep them.” “Yes; but Eileen, after all, to be eaten, that is what it was made for,” answered Ernest, in quiet, practical tones, yet smiling indulgently. “The unkind thing would be to put it back and let it have its fight all over again when some other fellow played it and it had learned fear. Besides, have you forgotten that this is the last day of the fishing and that we came out to get some trout for your father, who is sick and needs tempting, that being your excuse for my leaving work?” Then they glanced at one another, laughing; the trout went into the creel, and the soft wind came down with the stream, laden with fragrance of grape flowers and the courting ecstasies of birds, then escaped from the trees, and was spread over the low meadows to the eastward, making low music in the long grass, fit accompaniment to the bobolinks that soared from it, singing.