midday
So long ! '' He patted the top of her sunbonnet , gave a little pull to the short brown braid that hung behind her temptingly , -- which no miner was ever known to resist , -- and watched her flutter off with her spoils . He had done so many times before , for the great , foolish heart of the Blue Cement Ridge had gone out to Peggy Baker , the little daughter of the blacksmith , quite early . There were others of the family , notably two elder sisters , invincible at picnics and dances , but Peggy was as necessary to these men as the blue jay that swung before them in the dim woods , the squirrel that whisked across their morning path , or the woodpecker who beat his tattoo at their midday meal from the hollow pine above them . She was part of the nature that kept them young . Her truancies and vagrancies concerned them not : she was a law to herself , like the birds and squirrels . There were bearded lips to hail her wherever she went , and a blue or red-shirted arm always stretched out in any perilous pass or dangerous crossing .