alk by myself over every other foot of the
acres and acres of beautiful land my father owned; but plowed fields,
grassy meadows, wood pasture, and the orchard were different. I played
in them without a thought of fear.

The only things to be careful about were a little, shiny, slender
snake, with a head as bright as mother's copper kettle, and a big thick
one with patterns on its back like those in Laddie's geometry books,
and a whole rattlebox on its tail; not to eat any berry or fruit I
didn't know without first asking father; and always to be sure to
measure how deep the water was before I waded in alone.

But our Big Woods! Leon said the wildcats would get me there. I sat
in our catalpa and watched the Gypsies drive past every summer. Mother
hated them as hard as ever she could hate any one, because once they
had stolen some fine shirts, with linen bosoms, that she had made by
hand for father, and was bleaching on the grass. If Gypsies should be
in our west woods to-day and steal me, she would hate them worse than
ever; because my mother loved me now, even if she didn't want me when I
was born.

But you could excuse her for that. She had already bathed, spanked,
sewed for, and reared eleven babies so big and strong not one of them
ever even threatened to die. When you thought of that, you could see
she wouldn't be likely to implore the Almighty to send her another,
just to make her family even numbers. I never felt much hurt at her,
but some of the others I never have forgiven and maybe I never will.
As long as there had been eleven babies, they should have been so
accustomed to children that they needn't all of them have objected to
me, all except Laddie, of course. That was the reason I loved him so
and tried to do every single thing he wanted me to, just the way he
liked it done. That was why I was facing the only spot on our land
where I was in the slightest afraid; because he asked me to.

If he had told me to dance a jig on the ridgepole of our barn, I would
have tried it.

So I clasped the note, set my teeth, and climbed over the gate. I
walked fast and kept my eyes straight before me. If I looked on either
side, sure as life I would see something I never had before, and be
down digging up a strange flower, chasing a butterfly, or watching a
bird. Besides, if I didn't look in the fence corners that I passed,
maybe I wouldn't see anything to scare me. I was going along finely,
and feeling b