especially to shade the water, and to feed the
birds. Every foot of it was covered with alders, wild cherry,
hazelbush, mulberries, everything having a berry or nut. There were
several scrub apple trees, many red haws, the wild strawberries spread
in big beds in places, and some of them were colouring.

Wild flowers grew everywhere, great beds were blue with calamus, and
the birds flocked in companies to drive away the water blacksnakes that
often found nests, and liked eggs and bird babies. When I came to the
road at last, the sun was around so the big oak on the top of the hill
threw its shadow across the bridge, and I lay along one edge and
watched the creek bottom, or else I sat up so the water flowed over my
feet, and looked at the embankment and the sky. In a way, it was the
most peculiar day of my life. I had plenty to think of, but I never
thought at all. I only lived. I sat watching the world go past
through a sort of golden haze the sun made. When a pair of kingbirds
and three crows chased one of my hawks pell-mell across the sky, I
looked on and didn't give a cent what happened. When a big blacksnake
darted its head through sweet grass and cattails, and caught a frog
that had climbed on a mossy stone in the shade to dine on flies, I let
it go. Any other time I would have hunted a stick and made the snake
let loose. To-day I just sat there and let things happen as they did.

At last I wandered up the road, climbed the back garden fence, and sat
on the board at the edge of a flowerbed, and to-day, I could tell to
the last butterfly about that garden: what was in bloom, how far things
had grown, and what happened. Bobby flew under the Bartlett pear tree
and crowed for me, but I never called him. I sat there and lived on,
and mostly watched the bees tumble over the bluebells. They were
almost ready to be cut to put in the buttered tumblers for perfume,
like mother made for us. Then I went into the house and looked at
Grace Greenwood, but I didn't take her along. Mother came past and
gave me a piece of stiff yellow brocaded silk as lovely as I ever had
seen, enough for a dress skirt; and a hand-embroidered chemise sleeve
that only needed a band and a button to make a petticoat for a Queen
doll, but I laid them away and wandered into the orchard.

I dragged my bare feet through the warm grass, and finally sat under
the beet red peach tree. If ever I seemed sort of lost and sorry for
myself, that