Step by step, a little and a little further on the tiny white figure
glanced. A sense of happy freedom possessed the little girl. A cloud of
golden butterflies beckoned on before. Here a dark thread of water crept
down over the hills and splashed musically into the great stone trough.
All the way an invisible brooklet gurgled and kept her company. Only one
bird seemed to sing at a time--first one, then another. Wasn't it
charming? And at the end of it all must be--Tot could see it now in
fancy--the fluttering blue ribbon uncurling between sunny sloping
banks--SUGAR RIVER--fast asleep under the summer sun, on its glittering
bed of rock candy. O, rapture! Tot's mouth watered for its sugary
delights.
On and on and on, with the brook and the butterflies and the welcoming
bird. On, till the maples stopped and could go no further, and so she
left them behind. Out into the open sun-light she came, and only the
long, hot, and dazzling road stretched on before.
Tot's small feet trudged on, steadily. Just a little further on--Tot was
sure--and then--But how long the road grew, how deep the dust lay, how
tired the little feet were getting, little feet that can trudge about
all day long in play, yet drag so wearily over long straight roads.
"I sood fink I would tum to Soogar Wiver pwetty soon," she sighed.
At last she came to where some cross-roads met, and looking down one she
saw the cool green shade again.
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