was a good place to go; it was so easy to feel abused
there because you didn't dare touch those peaches. Fluffy baby
chickens were running around, but I didn't care; there was more than a
bird for every tree, bluebirds especially; they just loved us and came
early and stayed late, and grew so friendly they nested all over the
wood house, smoke house, and any place we fixed for them, and in every
hollow apple limb. Bobby came again, but I didn't pay any attention to
him.

Then I heard the carriage cross the bridge. I knew when it was father,
every single time his team touched the first plank. So I ran like an
Indian, and shinned up a cedar tree, scratching myself until I bled.
Away up I stood on a limb, held to the tree and waited. Father drove
to the gate, and mother came out, with May, Candace, and Leon
following. When Shelley touched the ground and straightened, any other
tree except a spruce having limbs to hold me up, I would have fallen
from it. She looked exactly as if she had turned to tombstone with
eyes and hair alive. She stopped a second to brush a little kiss
across mother's lips, to the others she said without even glancing at
them: "Oh do let me lie down a minute! The motion of that train made
me sick."

Well, I should say it did! I quit living, and began thinking in a
hooray, and so did every one else at our house. Once I had been sick
and queened it over them for a while, now all of us strained ourselves
trying to wait on Shelley; but she wouldn't have it. She only said she
was tired to death, to let her rest, and she turned her face to the
wall and lay there. Once she said she never wanted to see a city again
so long as she lived. When mother told her about Laddie and the
Princess to try to interest her, she never said a word; I doubted if
she even listened. Father and mother looked at each other, when they
thought no one would see, and their eyes sent big, anxious questions
flashing back and forth. I made up my mind I'd keep awake that night
and hear what they said, if I had to take pins to bed with me and stick
myself.

Once mother said to Shelley that she was going to send for Dr. Fenner,
and she answered: "All right, if you need him. Don't you dare for me!
I'll not see him. All I want is a little peace and rest."

The idea! Not one of us ever had spoken to mother like that before in
all our born days. I held my breath to see what she would do, but she
didn't seem to have