that it was high time to
garner in the crabapple crop and start making jelly. The best trees around
Greenacres were up on the old Cynthy Allen place. While the house had
burned down the year before, still Cynthy's fruit trees were famous all
over Gilead and Mr. Robbins had bought up the crop in advance from her. As
Cynthy said rather pathetically when the money was placed in her hand:

"Land, Jerry, I never thought those old fruit trees would bring me a
windfall just when I needed it most for taxes and such like."

It was only about a mile and a half to Cynthy's place from the crossroads,
but Shad had taken Princess down to Nantic after grain, and Kit had no
inclination to carry several pecks of crabapples in a sack along a dusty
road. Doris and Helen were out with Madame Ormond on a wood hike, and Jean
and her mother had been invited by Miss Emery to afternoon tea at her
tent, so that Kit was left to her own devices.

She stood on the veranda irresolutely, a couple of grain sacks thrown over
her shoulder, and suddenly the sparkle of the river through the trees in
the distance caught her eye. Certainly, that was the answer. She had not
had a chance the whole summer to go out in the boat and bask in idleness.
Always before this, Billie and she had chummed together through the summer
months, and she knew Little River all the way from the Fort Ned Falls at
the crossroads to where it slipped away in a shallow stream to the upper
hills.

There were several old rowboats lying bottom side up on the shore above
the falls. Kit selected the newest of the lot, a slender green boat that
Billie had lately acquired, although she had never tried rowing anything
but a flat-bottomed boat. It was the very first time also that she had
been out in a boat alone, but this fact never daunted Kit. She rowed up
the river with a firm level stroke, thoroughly enjoying herself and the
novelty of solitude. When she passed the island, Stanley was down on the
little stretch of beach cleaning a mess of fish for supper. She sent him a
hail across the water, and he held up a string of pickerel invitingly.
There had been a thunder-storm and a quick midsummer rain the early part
of the afternoon, and the campers had been quick to take advantage of the
fishing.

"I'll stop for them on my way back," Kit called. "Just going up after
crabapples at the Allen place." She had swerved the boat towards the bank
on the opposite side of the island, without look