Tell them that '_Alaka has lost his precious turquoises, but he will win them back again some day_.' Can you remember to say just that ?" He must have thought she wasn't much more than a baby to repeat it so carefully to her several times, as if he were teaching her a lesson.
Well, to be sure, she was only eleven then, and she had almost cried when she begged him not to go away, and insisted on knowing when he was coming back.

He had looked away toward old Camelback Mountain with a strange, sorry look on his face as he answered: "Not till I've learned your lesson--to be 'inflexible.' When I'm strong enough to keep stiff in the face of any temptation, then I'll come back, little Vicar." Then he had stooped and kissed her hastily on both cheeks, and started off down the road, with her watching him through a blur of tears, because it seemed that all the good times in the world had suddenly come to an end.

Away down the road he had turned to look back and wave his hat, and she had caught up her white sunbonnet and swung it high by its one limp string.
Afterward, when she went back to the swing by the beehives, she recalled all the old stories she had ever heard of knights who went out into the world to seek their fortunes, and waved farewell to some ladye fair in her watch-tower.

She felt, in a vague way, that she had been bidden farewell by a brave knight errant.

Although she was burning with curiosity when she delivered the message about the turquoises and Alaka, and wondered why Lloyd and Joyce exchanged such meaning glances, something kept her from asking questions, and she had gone on wondering all these years what it meant, and why there was such a sorry look in his eyes when he gazed out toward the old Camelback Mountain.