eir mother about the
ladder, she agreed with Gardener that the tree must not be injured, as
it bore the biggest cherries in all the neighborhood--so big that the
old saying of "taking two bites at a cherry," came really true.

"Wait till the cherries are ripe," said she; and so the little people
waited, and watched it through its leafing and blossoming--such sheets
of blossom, white as snow!--till the fruit began to show, and grew large
and red on every bough.

At last one morning the mother said, "Children, should you like to help
gather the cherries to-day?"

"Hurrah!" they cried, "and not a day too soon; for we saw a flock of
starlings in the next field--and if we don't clear the tree, they will."

"Very well; clear it, then. Only mind and fill my basket quite full, for
preserving. What is over you may eat, if you like."

"Thank you, thank you!" and the children were eager to be off; but the
mother stopped them till she could get the Gardener and his ladder.

"For it is he must climb the tree, not you; and you must do exactly as
he tells you; and he will stop with you all the time and see that you
don't come to harm."

This was no slight cloud on the children's happiness, and they begged
hard to go alone.

"Please, might we? We will be so good!"

[Illustration: When the Gardener was steadying his ladder against the
trunk of the cherry-tree]

The mother shook her head. All the goodness in the world would not help
them if they tumbled off the tree, or ate themselves sick with cherries.
"You would not be safe, and I should be so unhappy!"

To make mother "unhappy" was the worst rebuke possible to these
children; so they choked down their disappointment, and followed the
Gardener as he walked on ahead, carrying his ladder on his shoulder. He
looked very cross, and as if he did not like the children's company at
all.

They were pretty good, on the whole, though they chattered a good deal;
but Gardener said not a word to them all the way to the orchard. When
they reached it, he just told them to "keep out of his way and not
worrit him," which they politely promised, saying among themselves that
they should not enjoy their cherry-gathering at all. But children who
make the best of things, and try to be as good as they can, sometimes
have fun unawares.

When the Gardener was steadying his ladder against the trunk of the
cherry-tree, there was suddenly heard the barking of a dog, and a very
fierce dog, too. F