ot in
motion; there was no hum of the saw, no harsh cry of the rent boards:
she said to herself that the miller was getting a great log in place on
the little cart to be drawn up the tramway. But when she reached the
spot, the miller was not there; the mill was closed, and only the
peculiar fresh odor of the logs recently sawn asunder told that but a
short time before the saw had been in motion. She went on to the door of
the little house, and knocked; no one answered. Standing on tiptoe, she
peeped in through the low window, and saw that the rooms were empty, and
in that shining order that betokens the housewife's absence. Returning
to the mill, she walked up the tramway; a bit of paper, for the
information of chance customers, was pinned to the latch: "All hands
gone to the sirkus. Home at sunset." She sat down, took off her straw
hat, and considered what to do.

Three hundred and sixty-four days of that year Saw-miller Pike, his
wife, his four children, and his hired man, one or all of them, were on
that spot; their one absence chance decreed should be on this particular
August Thursday when Anne Douglas came there to spend the day. She was
not afraid; it was a quiet rural neighborhood without beggars or tramps.
Her grandaunt would not return until sunset. She decided to look for the
fern, and if she found it within an hour or two, to walk home, and send
a boy back on horseback to wait for Miss Vanhorn. If she did not find it
before afternoon, she would wait for the carriage, according to
agreement. Hanging her basket and shawl on a tree branch near the mill,
she entered the ravine, and was soon hidden in its green recesses. Up
and down, up and down the steep rocky sides she climbed, her tin case
swinging from her shoulder, her trowel in her belt; she neglected no
spot, and her track, if it had been visible, would have shown itself
almost as regular as the web of the geometric spider. Up and down, up
and down, from the head of the ravine to its foot on one side: nothing.
It seemed to her that she had seen the fronds and curled crosiers of a
thousand ferns. Her eyes were tired, and she threw herself down on a
mossy bank not far from the mill to rest a moment. There was no use in
looking at the watch; still, she did it, and decided that it was either
half past eleven or half past three. The remaining side of the ravine
gazed at her steadily; she knew that she must clamber over every inch
of those rocks also. She sighed