"Let's throw a shoe after him for luck, as dear old 'Mrs. Gummage' did
after 'David' and the 'willin' Barkis!' Quick, Nan! you always have
old shoes on; toss one, and shout, 'Good luck!'" cried Di, with one of
her eccentric inspirations.
Nan tore off her shoe, and threw it far along the dusty road, with a
sudden longing to become that auspicious article of apparel, that the
omen might not fail.
Looking backward from the hill-top, John answered the meek shout
cheerily, and took in the group with a lingering glance: Laura in the
shadow of the elms, Di perched on the fence, and Nan leaning far over
the gate with her hand above her eyes and the sunshine touching her
brown hair with gold. He waved his hat and turned away; but the music
seemed to die out of the blackbird's song, and in all the summer
landscape his eye saw nothing but the little figure at the gate.
"Bless and save us! here's a flock of people coming; my hair is in a
toss, and Nan's without her shoe; run! fly, girls! or the Philistines
will be upon us!" cried Di, tumbling off her perch in sudden alarm.
Three agitated young ladies, with flying draperies and countenances of
mingled mirth and dismay, might have been seen precipitating
themselves into a respectable mansion with unbecoming haste; but the
squirrels were the only witnesses of this "vision of sudden flight,"
and, being used to ground-and-lofty tumbling, didn't mind it.
When the pedestrians passed, the door was decorously closed, and no
one visible but a young man, who snatched something out of the road,
and marched away again, whistling with more vigor of tone than
accuracy of tune, "Only that, and nothing more.
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