ssed closer to her mother, feeling rather
"eerie," and some weeks after she said one day, "I don't want ever to go
home again because of passing through that dark wood."

But once arrived, the pleasant look of everything at the farm-house, and
the hearty welcome they received from their host and hostess, the farmer
and his wife, made every one feel it had all been worth the journey and
the trouble. And the next morning, when the children woke to a sunny
summer day in the quaint old house, and looked out on all sides on the
lovely meadows and leafy trees, with here and there a peep of the
gleaming river a little farther down the glen, and when, near at hand,
they heard the clucking of the hens and the mooing of the calves
and the barking of the dogs, and all the delightful sounds of real
farm-life, I think, children, you will not need me to try to tell
you how happy _our_ children felt. The next few days were a sort of
bewilderment of interests and pleasures and surprises--everything was so
nice and new--even the funny old-fashioned stoneware plates and dishes
seemed to Ted and Cissy to make the dinners and teas taste better than
anything they had ever eaten before. And very soon they were as much at
home in and about the farm-house as if they had lived there all their
lives,--feeding the calves and pigs, hunting for eggs, carrying in wood
for Mrs. Crosby to help her little niece Polly, a small person not much
older than Cissy, but already very useful in house and farm work. One
day, when they were busy at this wood-carrying, a brilliant idea struck
them.

"Wouldn't it be fun," said Ted, "to go to the wood--just the beginning
of it, you know--and gather a lot of these nice little dry branches;
they are so beautiful for lighting fires with?"

Cissy agreed that it would be great fun, and Polly, who was with them at
the time, thought, too, that it would be very nice indeed; and then a
still better idea struck Ted. "Suppose," he said, "that we were to go
to-morrow morning, and take our luncheon with us. Wouldn't _that_ be
nice? We could pack it in a basket and take it on the little truck that
we get the wood in, and then we could bring back the little truck full
of the dry branches."

The proposal was thought charming, and mother was consulted; and the
next morning Mrs. Crosby was busy betimes, hunting up what she could
give to her "honeys" for their picnic, and soon the three set off,
pulling the truck behind them, and