Peter by Francis Hopkinson Smith — Read

Summer has come: along the banks of the repentant stream the willows are in full leaf; stretches of grass, braving the coal smoke and dust hide the ugly red earth. The roads are dry again; the slopes of the "fill" once more are true; all the arches in the mouth of the tunnel are finished; the tracks have been laid and the first train has crawled out on the newly tracked road where it haggled, snorted and stopped, only to crawl back and be swallowed by The Beast.

And with the first warm day came Miss Felicia. "When your wretched, abominable roads, my dear, dry up so that a body can walk without sinking up to their neck in mud -- " ran Miss Felicia's letter in answer to Ruth's invitation, -- "I'll come down for the night," and she did, bringing Ruth half of her laces, now that she was determined to throw herself away on "that good-for nothing -- Yes, Jack, I mean you and nobody else, and you needn't stand there laughing at me, for every word of it's true; for what in the world you two babes in the wood are going to live on no mortal man knows; " Ruth answering with her arm tight around the dear lady's neck, -- a liberty nobody, -- not even Peter, ever dared take -- and a whisper in her ear that Jack was the blessedest ever, and that she loved him so sometimes she was well-nigh distracted -- a statement which the old lady remarked was literally true.