"Don't I?" she said, flushing with displeasure. "Her mother might suggest something," hazarded Donald. We looked at our
aunt. "Sweetheart is spoiled," said that lady decisively. "If you children
don't go away at once and have a good time, I shall find employment for
her." "Algebra?" I asked maliciously. "How dare you!" cried Sweetheart, sitting up. "Oh, isn't he mean! isn't
he ignoble!--and I've done my algebra; haven't I, mamma?" "But your French?" I began. Donald laughed, and so did Walter. As for Sweetheart, she arose in all
the dignity of sixteen years, closed her eyes with superb insolence,
and, clasping her mother's waist with one round white arm, marched out
of the arbour. "We tease her too much," said Donald. "She's growing up fast; we ought not to call her 'Sweetheart' when she
puts her hair up," added Walter. "She's going to put it up in October, when she goes back to school,"
said Donald. "Jack, she will hate you if you keep reminding her of her
algebra and French." "Then I'll stop," said I, suddenly conscious what an awful thing it
would be if she hated me. Donald's two pointers came frisking across the lawn from the kennels,
and Donald picked up his gun. "Here we go again," said I. "Donny's going to the coverts after grouse,
Walter's going up on the hill with his dust-shot and arsenic, and I'm
going across the fields after butterflies. Why the deuce can't we all
go together, just for once?" "And take Sweetheart? She would like it if we all went together," said
Walter; "she is tired of seeing Jack net butterflies." "Collecting birds and shooting grouse are two different things," began
Donald. "You spoil my dogs by shooting your confounded owls and humming
birds." "Oh, your precious dogs!" I cried. "Shut up, Donny, and give Sweetheart
a good day's tramp. It's a pity if three cousins can't pool their
pleasures for once." Donald nodded uncertainly. "Come on," said Walter, "we'll find Sweetheart. Jack, you get your
butterfly togs and come back here." I nodded, and watched my two cousins sauntering across the lawn--big,
clean-cut fellows, resembling each other enough to be brothers instead
of cousins. We all resembled each other more or less, Donald, Walter, and I. As for
Sweetheart, she looked like none of us. It was all very well for her mother to call her Sweetheart, and for
her aunts to echo it in chorus, but the time was coming when we saw we
should have to stop. A girl of sixteen with such a name is ridiculous,
and Sweetheart was nearly seventeen; and her hair was "going up" and
her gowns were "coming down" in October. Her own name was pretty enough. I don't know that I ought to tell it,
but I will: it was the same as her mother's. We called her Sweetheart
sometimes, sometimes "The Aspen Beauty." Donald had given her that name
from a butterfly in my collection, the Vanessa Pandora, commonly known
as the Aspen beauty, from its never having been captured in America
except in our village of Aspen. Here, in the north of New York State, we four cousins spent our summers
in the family house. There was not much to do in Aspen. We used the
links, we galloped over the sandy roads, we also trotted our several
hobbies, Donald, Walter, and I. Sweetheart had no hobby; to make up for
this, however, she owned a magnificent team of bêtes-noires--Algebra
and French. As for me, my butterfly collection languished. I had specimens of
nearly every butterfly in New York State, and I rather longed for new
states to conquer. Anyway, there were plenty of Aspen beauties--I mean
the butterflies--flying about the roads and balm-of-Gilead trees, and
perhaps that is why I lingered there long enough to collect hundreds of
duplicates for exchange. And perhaps it wasn't. I thought of these things as I sat in the sun-flecked arbour, watching
the yellow elm leaves flutter down from the branches. I thought, too,
of Sweetheart, and wondered how she would look with her hair up. And
while I sat there smoking, watching the yellow leaves drifting across
the lawn, a sharp explosion startled me and I raised my head. Sweetheart was standing on the lawn, gazing dreamily at the smoking
débris of a large firecracker. "What's that for?" I asked. "It proclaims my independence," said Sweetheart--"my independence
forever. Hereafter my cousins will ask to accompany me on my walks;
they need no longer charitably permit me to accompany them. Are you
three boys going to ride your hobbies?" "We are," I said. "Then good-bye. I am going to walk." "Can't we come too?" I asked, laughing. "Oh," she said graciously, "if you put it in that way I could not
refuse." "May we bring our guns?" asked Donald from the piazza. "May I bring my net?" I added, half amused, half annoyed. She made a gesture, indifferent, condescending. "Dear me!" murmured the aunts in chorus from the piazza as we trooped
after the Aspen beauty, "Sweetheart is growing very fast." I smiled vaguely at Sweetheart. I was wondering how she would look in
long frocks and coiled hair. II. In the fall of the year the meadows of Aspen glimmer in the sunlight
like crumpled sheets of beaten gold; for Aspen is the land of
golden-rod, of yellow earth and gilded fern. There the crisp oaks rustle, every leaf a blot of yellow; there the
burnished pines sound, sound, tremble, and resound, like gilt-stringed
harps aquiver in the wind. Sweet fern, sun-dried, bronzed, fills all the hills with incense, vague
and delicate as the white down drifting from the frothy milkweed. And where the meadow brook prattled, limpid, filtered with sunlight,
Sweetheart stood knee-deep in fragrant mint, watching the aimless
minnows swimming in circles. On a distant hill, dark against the blue,
Donald moved with his dogs, and I saw the sun-glint on his gun, and I
heard the distant "Hi--on! Hi--on!" long after he disappeared below the
brown hill's brow. Walter, too, had gone, leaving us there by the brook together,
Sweetheart and I; and I saw the crows flapping and circling far over
the woods, and I heard the soft report of his dust-shot shells among
the trees. "The ruling passion, Sweetheart," I said. "Donny chases the phantom of
pleasure with his dogs. The phantom flies from Walter, and he follows
with his dust-shot." "Then," said Sweetheart, "follow your phantom also; there are
butterflies everywhere." She raised both arms and turned from the
brook. "Everywhere flying I see butterflies--phantoms of pleasure; and,
Jack, you do not follow with your net." "No," said I, "the world to-day is too fair to--slay in. I even doubt
that the happiness of empires hinges on the discovery of a new species
of anything. Do I bore you?" "A little," said Sweetheart, touching the powdered gold of the blossoms
about her. She laid the tip of her third finger on her lips and then
on the golden-rod. "I shall not pick it; the world is too fair to-day,"
she said. "What are you going to do, Jack?" "I could doze," I said. "Could you?" "Yes--if you told me stories." I contemplated her in silence for a moment.