Not maples this time, but close and
clustering shrubbery.
She left the brook gurgling "go-oo-oo-d-by," and the butterflies waving
adieu with their golden wings, and went on alone. How sweet and still it
was here! The tall grass drooped over two brown beaten paths that horses
feet had worn, and a tender green light lay over all. But where was the
sweet river hiding? Another meeting of cross roads. Tot looked this way,
that. Ah, there it was over the road! Over the meadow. Gleaming,
gliding, Sugar River, at last.
"I fought I sood det to it pwetty soon," murmured Tot, triumphantly.
"Won't dwandma be glad to get some nice sugar plums? I wis I tood det
froo dis fence."
Through she got, with much squeezing and rending. Tot eyed her torn
pinafore, ruefully.
"I wis' 'ittle dirl's aprons wouldn't teep tearing on every single
fing."
"'Pears to me," doubtfully, putting one little foot down on the soft
marshy ground, "it is wather wet."
Rather wet? Yes, Totchen, very wet. Too wet for such little little feet
as yours. And see, little one, the sun is getting lower. Crawl back
through the fence and run home. The sleepy murmuring river has nothing
but trouble for you.
But Tot stumbled on over the marshy ground.
"I don't 'ike to go down so far," sighed Tot, drawing a little drenched
boot up from a treacherous bog. "And my new boots is detting all wet."
But Tot had a Spartan soul; and at last, beside the wonderful stream, on
the beautiful shore she stood, and--poor, poor little Tot! The little
pinafore torn, the pretty, trim boots soaked and soiled, all Tot's
little body dragged and weary; yet, it isn't that that makes me say
"poor little Tot!" It is to see her standing there at the goal of her
childish hopes with such happy, radiant eyes, and know how soon will
come to her that "saddest pain of all--to grasp the thing we long for
and find how it can fail us.
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