edge to another, and presently stopped altogether, facing a beech
tree, its trunk slowly twisted into a spiral because it was so hard to
keep alive on those rocks. She was straight in front of it, staring into
its gray white-blotched bark. Now if _Mother_ asked her, of course she'd
have to say, yes, she had planned to, _sort of_ but not quite. Mother
would understand. There wasn't any use trying to tell things how they
really were to Paul, because to him things weren't ever
sort-of-but-not-quite. They either were or they weren't. But Mother
always knew, both ways, hers and Paul's.

She stepped forward and downward now, lightened. Her legs stretched out
to carry her from one mossed rock to another. "Striding," that was what
she was doing. Now she knew just what "striding" meant. What fun it was
to _feel_ what a word meant! Then when you used it, you could feel it
lie down flat in the sentence, and fit into the other words, like a
piece in a jig-saw puzzle when you got it into the right place.
Gracious! How fast you could "stride" down those rocks into Aunt Hetty's
back yard!

Hello! Here at the bottom was some snow, a great big drift of it still
left, all gray and shrunk and honey-combed with rain and wind, with a
little trickle of water running away softly and quietly from underneath
it, like a secret. Well, think of there being still _snow_ left anywhere
except on top of the mountains! She had just been thinking all the
afternoon how _good_ it seemed to have the snow all gone, and here she
ran right into some, as if you'd been talking about a person, saying how
sick and tired you were of everlastingly seeing him around, and there he
was, right outside the window and hearing it all, and knowing it wasn't
_his_ fault he was still hanging on. You'd feel bad to know he'd heard.
She felt bad now! After all, the fun the snow had given them, all that
winter, sleighing and snow-shoeing and ski-running and sliding downhill.
And when she remembered how _glad_ she'd been to see the first snow, how
she and little Mark had run to the window to see the first flakes, and
had hollered, Oh goody, _goody!_ And here was all there was left, just
one poor old forgotten dirty drift, melting away as fast as it _could_,
so's to get itself out of the way. She stood looking down on it
compassionately, and presently, stooping over, gave it a friendly,
comforting pat with one mittened hand.

Then she was pierced with an arrow of hunger, terribl