"Oh, it always hurts when you begin in the spring," said Judith
carelessly. "You have to get used to it. How old are you?"

"Ten, last May."

"Buddy here began going barefoot last summer and he's only four," she
stated briefly, proceeding towards the barn and chicken-house.

After that remark the new boy walked forward with no more articulate
complaints, though his face was drawn and he bit his lips. He was
shown the chicken-yard--full of gawky, half-grown chickens shedding
their down and growing their feathers--and forgot his feet in the
fascination of scattering grain to them and watching their fluttering
scrambles. He was shown the rabbit-house and allowed to take one of
the limp, unresponsive little bunches of fur in his arms, and feed
a lettuce-leaf into its twitching pink mouth. He was shown the
house-in-the-maple-tree, a rough floor fixed between two large
branches, with a canvas roof over it, ensconced in which retreat his
eyes shone with happy excitement. He was evidently about to make some
comment on it, but glanced at Judith's dark handsome little face,
unsmiling and suspicious, and remained silent. He tried the same
policy when being shown the children's own garden, but Judith tracked
him out of this attempt at self-protection with some direct and
searching questions, discovering in him such ignorance of the broadest
division-lines of the vegetable kingdom that she gave herself up
to open scorn, vainly frowned down by the more naturally civilized
Sylvia, who was by no means enjoying herself. The new boy was not
in the least what he had looked. She longed to return to the
contemplation of Aunt Victoria's perfections. Lawrence was, as usual,
deep in an unreal world of his own, where he carried forth some