Two or three minutes it had taken her to try to move it, and when
she looked up the General had toddled same distance away, and was
travelling along as fast as ever his little fat legs would carry
him, thinking he was racing her. Just as she, started after him he
looked back, his eyes dancing, his face dimpled and mischievous, and,
oh! so dirty..
And then--ah, God!
It is so hard to write it. My pen has had only happy writing
to-do so far, and now!
"You rogue!" Judy called, pretending to run very quickly.
Then the whole world seemed to rise up before her.
There was a tree falling, one of the great, gaunt, naked things that
had been ringbarked long ago. All day it had swayed to and fro,
rotten through and through; now there came up across the plain a puff
of wind, and down it went before it. One wild ringing cry Judy gave,
then she leaped across the ground, her arms outstretched to the little
lad running with laughing eyes and lips straight to death.
The crash shook the trees around, the very air seemed splintered.
They had heard it--all the others--heard the wild cry and then the
horrible thud.
How their knees shook what blanched faces they had as they rushed
towards the sound!
They lifted it off the little bodies--the long, silvered trunk with
the gum dead and dried in streaks upon it.
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