"Beat time, oh, _do_ beat time," cried Judy breathlessly.
"We're going to make a fire," he shouted; "there's lots of things to
burn." He looked about him as though to choose a place. But he
couldn't find one. He pointed vaguely, first at Maria, as though she
was the thing to burn, and then at the landscape generally. "Then you
can dance _round_ it," he added convincingly to clinch the matter.
But the bird and the elephant continued their gymnastic exercises on
the lawn, while Maria turned her eyes without moving her head and
watched them too.
Then, while the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers" filled the air,
Tim and Maria began an irrelevant argument about things in general.
Tim, at least, told her things, while she laid the clock down upon the
grass and listened. But the flood of language rolled off her as
minutes roll from the face of the sun, producing no effect. There was
wonder in her big blue eyes, wonder that never seemed to end. But
minutes don't decrease merely because the rising and setting of the
sun sends them flying, and there are not fewer words in a boy's
vocabulary merely because he uses up a lot in saying things.
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