orse takes up his foot, he will put it down
again wherever it happens, and if a boy's foot is under it, it will
get trod upon. There is no possible way for boys to learn that but
by experiencing it. The only difference is, that some boys take the
treading light, and others get it heavy. You have got it light. So if
you have only learned the lesson, you have learned it very easily, and
so I am glad."

"No, it was not light," said Phonny. "It was very heavy. What makes
you think it was light?"

"By your walking," replied Beechnut. "I have known some boys that when
they took their lesson in keeping out of the way of horses' forefeet,
could not stand for a week after it. You have had most excellent luck,
you may depend."

By the time that Beechnut and Phonny reached the house, Malleville
had put on her bonnet and was ready to go. Mary Erskine said that she
would go with them a little way. Bella and Albert then wanted to go
too. Their mother said that she had no objection, and so they all went
along together.

"Did you know that we were going to have a new road?" said Mary
Erskine to Beechnut.

"Are you?" asked Phonny eagerly.

"Yes," said Mary Erskine. "They have laid out a new road to the
corner, and are going to make it very soon. It will be a very good
wagon road, and when it is made you can ride all the way. But then it
will not be done in time for my raspberry party."

"Your raspberry party?" repeated Phonny, "what is that?'

"Did not I tell you about it? I am going to invite you and all the
children in the village that I know, to come here some day when the
raspberries are ripe, and have a raspberry party,--like the strawberry
party that we had to-day. There are a great many raspberries on my
place."

"I'm _very_ glad," said Malleville. "When are you going to invite
us?"

"Oh, in a week or two," said Mary Erskine. "But then the new road will
not be done until the fall. They have just begun it. We can hear them
working upon it in one place, pretty soon."

The party soon came to the place which Mary Erskine had referred to.
It was a point where the new road came near the line of the old one,
and a party of men and oxen were at work, making a causeway, across a
low wet place. As the children passed along, they could hear the sound
of axes and the voices of men shouting to oxen. Phonny wished very
much to go and see. So Mary Erskine led the way through the woods a
short distance, till they came in sight of