SWAYING TREE TOPS 



just a hint now, a suggestion. But 

 they understood as well as though he 

 had explained all. Their boy was 

 getting out of boyhood, and the call 

 of the world was in his ears. 



Down in the kitchen, in the even- 

 ing after he had gone to his room, his 

 parents talked it over. " Our boy is 

 restless. He wants to leave home. 

 We cannot hold him here and we may 

 as well consent, but " and they 

 never finished the sentence, though 

 they often talked thus far, and 

 always ended thus. Yet each under- 

 stood the other, and the sentence 

 needed no ending. 



To-day, as the passerby caught the 

 odor of the lilacs, he remembered all 

 that past life. He remembered his 

 departure one afternoon. He left his 



[105] 



