lived at Miller's Notch--I came
here--just before Jerry was born."

"Has she many playmates?" He remembered Jerry chattering about some Rose
and Clementina and a Jimmy Chubbs.

"A few--but there are only a few of her own age. And she is outgrowing
her school." A little frown wrinkled Mrs. Travis' pretty brow. "That is
the first real problem that has come to Sunnyside for--a very long time.
Life has always been so simple here. We have all we can want to eat and
the doctor's practice, though it isn't large, keeps us clothed,
but--Jerry's beginning to want something more than the school down
there--and these few chums and--even I--can give her!"

John Westley recalled Jerry's face when she told her wish: "I want to go
along that shining road--down there--around and around--to the other
side of the mountain." He nodded now as though he understood exactly
what Mrs. Travis meant by "her problem." He understood, too, though he
had no child of his own, just why her voice trembled ever so slightly.

"We can't keep little Jerry from growing into big Jerry nor from wanting
to stretch her wings a bit and yet--oh, the world's such a big, hard
place--there's so much cruelty and selfishness in it, so much
unhappiness! If I could only keep her here always, contented----" she
stopped abruptly, a little ashamed of her outburst.

John Westley knew, just as though she had told him in detail all about
herself, that life, sometime and somewhere away from the quiet of
Sunnyside, had hurt this little woman.

"Dr. Travis and I find company in our books," Mrs. Travis went on, "and
our neighbors, though we're quite far apart, are pleasant,
simple-hearted people. Jerry does all the things that young people like
to do; she swims down in Miller's Lake, and skates and skis and she
roams the year round all over the side of Kettle; she can call the birds
and wild squirrels to her as though she was a little wild creature
herself. She takes care of her own little garden. And I do everything
with her. Yet she is always talking as though some day she'd run away!
Of course I know she wouldn't do exactly _that_, but I sometimes wonder
if I have the right to try to hold her back. I haven't forgotten my own
dreams." She laughed. "I certainly never dreamed of _this_"--sweeping
her hand toward the shadowy room--"and yet this is better, I've found,
than the rosy picture my young fancy used to paint!"

John Westley wished that he had read more and worked l