run any one's errands that morning. I laid
the pie on the horseblock and climbed the catalpa carefully, so as not
to frighten my robins. They were part father's too, because robins
were his favourite birds; he said their song through and after rain was
the sweetest music on earth, and mostly he was right; so they were not
all my robins, but they were most mine after him; and I owned the tree.
I hunted the biggest leaf I could see, and wiped it clean on my apron,
although it was early for much dust. It covered the pie nicely,
because it was the proper shape, and I held the stem with one hand to
keep it in place.

If I had made that morning myself I couldn't have done better. It was
sunny, spring air, but it was that cool, spicy kind that keeps you
stopping every few minutes to see just how full you can suck your lungs
without bursting. It seemed to wash right through and through and make
you all over. The longer you breathed it the clearer your head became,
and the better you felt, until you would be possessed to try and see if
you really couldn't fly. I tried that last summer, and knocked myself
into jelly. You'd think once would have been enough, but there I was
going down the road with Laddie's pie, and wanting with all my heart to
try again.

Sometimes I raced, but I was a little afraid the pie would shoot from
the shingle and it was like pulling eye teeth to go fast that morning.
I loved the soft warm dust, that was working up on the road. Spat!
Spat! I brought down my bare feet, already scratched and turning
brown, and laughed to myself at the velvety feel of it. There were
little puddles yet, where May and I had "dipped and faded" last fall,
and it was fun to wade them. The roadsides were covered with meadow
grass and clover that had slipped through the fence. On slender green
blades, in spot after spot, twinkled the delicate bloom of blue-eyed
grass. Never in all this world was our Big Creek lovelier. It went
slipping, and whispering, and lipping, and lapping over the stones,
tugging at the rushes and grasses as it washed their feet; everything
beside it was in masses of bloom, a blackbird was gleaming and preening
on every stone, as it plumed after its bath. Oh there's no use to
try--it was just SPRING when it couldn't possibly be any better.

But even spring couldn't hold me very long that morning, for you see my
heart was almost sick about Laddie; and if he couldn't have the girl he
wante