W. O. C.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

THE BLACKBERRY FROLIC.

"WHY, where are you going, Nelly?" asked Martin Ray of his sister, as,
with a plate of pudding for him, she entered his chamber where he was
confined to his bed.

Poor Martin had broken his leg by a fall from a tree, and he had to keep
very still.

"We have made up a blackberry-party," said Nelly. "The girls and boys
are waiting for me at the door; and I can only stop a minute to say that
you must be good, and not fret while I am away."

"Don't be late in returning home," said Martin; "for mother is going to
take me down stairs for the first time, this afternoon; and I want to
see you before I go up to bed."

"All the sweetest berries I can find shall be saved for you," said
Nelly, as she tied the little scarf about her neck, put on her hat, and
kissed Martin for good-by.

Nelly's companions were waiting impatiently for her at the door; and,
when she came, they raised a shout of "Here she is!" Then they set off,
through a shady lane, on their walk to Squire Atherton's woods, along
the borders of which the blackberries grew in great profusion.

Soon they came to a place where a brook crossed between two fields, with
such a narrow plank for a bridge that some of the girls did not half
like going over it; for the brook seemed to be quite full and deep.

"What a fuss you girls make about trifles!" cried Robert Wood. "Who but
a girl would think of being frightened at a bridge like this?"

[Illustration]

"Stop that, Robert," said Harry Thorp. "I will help them across in a way
that will prevent all danger."

Harry plucked up a stout bulrush that grew near by, and held it out over
the plank to the girls to serve as a kind of support for them to hold
by. Susan Maples was the first to lay hold of the thick end of the
bulrush, by which Harry led her across. Then the other girls followed;
but, just as Nelly got on, Robert Wood shook the plank, and tried to
scare her.

He did not succeed in this; for Nelly was thinking of her dear brother
at home with his broken leg, and she felt that she would not be afraid
of a much more dangerous crossing than that over the plank.

After a walk of a mile, they came to the edge of the wood. "Jewels of
jet! Look here!" cried Harry Thorp. "See the bouncers! Here's sweetness!
Here's blackness! Here's richness!"

[Illustration]

And, true enough, there they were. Never