Blue-Bird Weather Page 6

twice; rap-rap, echoed MissHerold's gun, and splash! splash! down whirled two gray-and-red ducks;then a third, uncertain, slowed down, far out beyond the decoys, andslanted sideways to the water. The fourth went on.

  "Duffer that I am," said Marche good-humoredly. "That was a clean doubleof yours, Miss Herold!--clean-cut work."

  She said, slightly knitting her straight brows: "I should have crossedtwo of them and killed the one you missed. I think I'd better get theboat."

  "No, I'll go out after that kicker," he said, ashamed of his slovenlywork.

  Five minutes later he returned with his kicker and her two ducks--great,fat, heavy canvasbacks, beautiful in their red, black, and drab plumage.

  "What about blue-bird weather, now?" he laughed.

  But she only smiled and said, "I'm very much afraid."

  For a long while they sat there, alert behind their wall of rustlingreeds, watching sky and water. False alarms were not infrequent fromtheir decoys. Sometimes the outbreak of quacking and honking wasoccasioned by some wandering gull, sometimes by a circling hawk or someeagle loitering in mid-heaven on broad and leisurely wings, reluctant toremain, unwilling to go; sometimes to a pair or two of widgeon orpintails speeding eastward high in the blue. But the sparkling,cloudless hours sped away, and no duck or goose or swan invaded thevicinity. Only one sly old black duck dropped into the reeds far back onthe island; and Marche went after him with serious designs upon hisfraudulent old life.

  When the young man returned, twenty minutes later, perfectly innocent ofduck murder, he found the girl curled up in her corner of the pit, eyesclosed, tired little head cradled in the curve of her left arm. Shewaked as he slid into the blind, and smiled at him, pretending not tohave been asleep.

  "Did you get him?"

  "No. He went off at two hundred yards."

  "Blue-bird weather," she sighed; and again they exchanged smiles. Henoticed that her eyes had somehow become exceedingly blue instead of theclear gray which he had supposed was their color. And, after her briefslumber, there seemed to be a sort of dewy freshness about them, andabout her slightly pink cheeks, which, at that time, he had no idea wereat all perilous to him. All he was conscious of was a sensation ofpleasure in looking at her, and a slight surprise in the revelation ofelements in her which, he began to decide, constituted real beauty.

  "That's a quaint expression--'blue-bird weather,'" he said. "It's aperfect description of a spring-like day in winter. Is it a localexpression?"

  "Yes--I think so. There's a song about it, along the coast"--shelaughed uncertainly--"a rather foolish song."

  "What is it?"

  "If I remember"--she hesitated, thinking for a moment, then, with alaugh which he thought a little bashful--"it's really too silly torepeat!"

  "Please sing it!"

  "Very well--if you wish."

  And in a low, pretty, half-laughing voice, she sang:

  "Quiet sea and quiet sky, Idle sail and anchored boat, Just a snowflake gull afloat, Drifting like a feather-- And the gray hawk crying, And a man's heart sighing-- That is blue-bird weather:-- And the high hawk crying, And a maid's heart sighing Till lass and lover come together,-- This is blue-bird weather."

  She turned her head and looked steadily out across the waste of water."I told you it was silly," she said, very calmly.