marshy ground, "it is wather wet."

Rather wet? Yes, Totchen, very wet. Too wet for such little little feet
as yours. And see, little one, the sun is getting lower. Crawl back
through the fence and run home. The sleepy murmuring river has nothing
but trouble for you.

But Tot stumbled on over the marshy ground.

"I don't 'ike to go down so far," sighed Tot, drawing a little drenched
boot up from a treacherous bog. "And my new boots is detting all wet."

But Tot had a Spartan soul; and at last, beside the wonderful stream, on
the beautiful shore she stood, and--poor, poor little Tot! The little
pinafore torn, the pretty, trim boots soaked and soiled, all Tot's
little body dragged and weary; yet, it isn't that that makes me say
"poor little Tot!" It is to see her standing there at the goal of her
childish hopes with such happy, radiant eyes, and know how soon will
come to her that "saddest pain of all--to grasp the thing we long for
and find how it can fail us."

Up and down she walks, searching for sweetmeat pebbles and sugary
stones, and when she finds none--the water running high and close to the
grassy ground--she stoops and, dipping her little fingers, she lifts
them, wet and dripping, to her longing lips.

"It isn't _vewy_ sweet," she said.

Poor little Tot! Down the stream she came to a ford, and the shallow
water had left stones and pebbles bare. Big and little, and half size;
white and yellow, and brown and gray.

Here was richness at last. All in a minute Tot's little, nibbling,
crunching teeth went on edge on a perverse, grating pebble that sternly
refused to be nibbled or crunched. Another and another and another she
tried.

"Pwobably," she thought, "they has to be cwacked dus 'ike nuts." And she
proceeded to crack, not the stones, but her own little, eager,
blundering fingers, instead. O stony, stony-hearted stones and
pebbly-hearted pebbles! Tot's cup of bitterness seemed to flow over. She
stood up, sobbing. A sudden sense of desolation oppressed her.

"I wis' I was at home wiv dwandma. I wis,' oh, I _wis'_ I hadn't tum!"
she sobbed.

Her only thought, now, was to get home. But, first, what do you think
she did? She filled her bit of a pocket full of pebbles for grandmamma
to crack; then the little weary feet stumbled back again over the weary
way.

"My feet's is detting so heavy," she sighed, "and I _fink_ I's detting
tired."

Tot was crying piteously now, and no one heard. All alone, mamma