Mary Erskine - Jacob Abbott (the best novels to read txt) 📗

one was answering another, to beguile the solemn loneliness of the woods. The trees were very tall, and Mary Bell, as she looked up from her deep and narrow pathway, and saw the lofty tops rocking to and fro with a very slow and gentle motion, as they were waved by the wind, it seemed to her that they actually touched the sky.

At one time she heard the leaves rustling, by the side of the road, and looking in under the trees, she saw a gray squirrel, just in the act of leaping up from the leaves upon the ground to the end of a log. As soon as he had gained this footing, he stopped and looked round at Mary Bell. Mary Bell stopped too; each looked at the other for several seconds, in silence, the child with an expression of curiosity and pleasure upon her countenance, and the squirrel with one of wonder and fear upon his. Mary Bell made a sudden motion toward him with her hand to frighten him a little. It did frighten him. He turned off and ran along the log as fast as he could go, until he reached the end of it, and disappeared.

"Poor Bobbin," said Mary Bell, "I am sorry that I frightened you away."

A few steps farther on in her walk, Mary Bell came to a place where a great number of yellow butterflies had settled down together in the path. Most of them were still, but a few were fluttering about, to find good places.

"Oh, what pretty butterflies!" said Mary Bell. "They have been flying about, I suppose, till they have got tired, and have stopped to rest. But if I were a butterfly, I would rest upon flowers, and not upon the ground."

Mary Bell paused and looked upon the butterflies a moment, and then said,

"And now how shall I get by? I am sure I don't want to tread upon those butterflies. I will sit down here, myself, on a stone, and wait till they get rested and fly away. Besides, I am tired myself, and I shall get rested too."

Just as she took her seat she saw that there was a little path, which diverged here from the main road, and turned into the woods a little way, seeming to come back again after a short distance. There were many such little paths, here and there, running parallel to the main road. They were made by the cows, in the spring of the year when the roads were wet, to avoid the swampy places. These places were now all dry, and the bye-paths were consequently of no use, though traces of them remained.

"No," said Mary Bell. "I will not stop to rest; I am not very tired; so I will go around by this little path. It will come into the road again very soon."

Mary Bell's opinion would have been just, in respect to any other path but this one; but it so happened, very unfortunately for her, that now, although not aware of it, she was in fact very near the great pine-tree, where the road into the woods branched off, and the path which she was determining to take, though it commenced in the main road leading to Mary Erskine's, did not return to it again, but after passing, by a circuitous and devious course, through the bushes a little way, ended in the branch road which led into the woods, at a short distance beyond the pine-tree.

Mary Bell was not aware of this state of things, but supposed, without doubt, that the path would come out again into the same road that it left, and that, she could pass round through it, and so avoid disturbing the butterflies. She thought, indeed, it might possibly be that the path would not come back at all, but would lose itself in the woods; and to guard against this danger, she determined that after going on for a very short distance, if she found that it did not come out into the road again, she would come directly back. The idea of its coming out into a wrong road did not occur to her mind as a possibility.

She accordingly entered the path, and after proceeding in it a little way she was quite pleased to see it coming out again into what she supposed was the main road. Dismissing, now, all care and concern, she walked forward in a very light-hearted and happy manner. The road was very similar in its character to the one which she ought to have taken, so that there was nothing in the appearances around her to lead her to suppose that she was wrong. She had, moreover, very little idea of measures of time, and still less of distance, and thus she went on for more than an hour before she began to wonder why she did not get to Mary Erskine's.

She began to suspect, then, that she had in some way or other lost the right road. She, however, went on, looking anxiously about for indications of an approach to the farm, until at length she saw signs of an opening in the woods, at some distance before her. She concluded to go on until she came to this opening, and if she could not tell where she was by the appearance of the country there, she would go back again by the road she came.

The opening, when she reached it, appeared to consist of a sort of pasture land, undulating in its surface, and having thickets of trees and bushes scattered over it, here and there. There was a small elevation in the land, at a little distance from the place where Mary Bell came out, and she thought that she would go to the top of this elevation, and look for Mary Erskine's house, all around. She accordingly did so, but neither Mary Erskine's house nor any other human habitation was anywhere to be seen.

She sat down upon a smooth stone, which was near her, feeling tired and thirsty, and beginning to be somewhat anxious in respect to her situation. She thought, however, that there was no great danger, for her mother would certainly send Joseph out into the woods to find her, as soon as she heard that she was lost. She concluded, at first, to wait where she was until Joseph should come, but on second thoughts, she concluded to go back by the road which had led her to the opening, and so, perhaps meet him on the way. She was very thirsty, and wished very much that one of the oranges in the pail belonged to her, for she would have liked to eat one very much indeed. But they were not either of them hers. One belonged to Bella, and the other to the baby.

She walked back again to the woods, intending to return toward the corner, by the road in which she came, but now she could not find the entrance to it. She wandered for some time, this way and that, along the margin of the wood, but could find no road. She, however, at length found something which she liked better. It was a beautiful spring of cool water, bubbling up from between the rocks on the side of a little hill. She sat down by the side of this spring, took off the cover from her little pail, took out the oranges and laid them down carefully in a little nook where they would not roll away, and then using the pail for a dipper, she dipped up some water, and had an excellent drink.

"What a good spring this is!" said she to herself. "It is as good as Mary Erskine's."

It was the time of the year in which raspberries were ripe, and Mary Bell, in looking around her from her seat near the spring, saw at a distance a place which appeared as if there were raspberry bushes growing there.

"I verily believe that there are some raspberries," said she. "I will go and see; if I could only find plenty of raspberries, it would be all that I should want."

The bushes proved to be raspberry bushes, as Mary had supposed, and she found them loaded with fruit. She ate of them abundantly, and was very much refreshed. She would have filled her pail besides, so as to have some to take along with her, but she had no place to put the oranges, except within the pail.

It was now about noon; the sun was hot, and Mary Bell began to be pretty tired. She wished that they would come for her. She climbed up upon a large log which lay among the bushes, and called as loud as she could,

" Mary Erskine! Mary Erskine! "

Then after pausing a moment, and listening in vain for an answer, she renewed her call,


" Thom as! Thom as! "

Then again, after another pause,

" Jo seph! Jo seph! "


She listened a long time, but heard nothing except the singing of the birds, and the sighing of the wind upon the tops of the trees in the neighboring forests.

She began to feel very anxious and very lonely. She descended from the log, and walked along till she got out of the bushes. She came to a place where there were rocks, with smooth surfaces of moss and grass among them. She found a shady place among these rocks, and sat down upon the moss. She laid her head down upon her arm and began to weep bitterly.

Presently she raised her head again, and endeavored to compose herself, saying,

"But I must not cry. I must be patient, and wait till they come. I am very tired, but I must not go to sleep, for then I shall not hear them when they come. I will lay my head down, but I will keep my eyes open."

She laid her head down accordingly upon a mossy mound, and notwithstanding her resolution to keep her eyes open, in ten minutes she was fast asleep.

She slept very soundly for more than two hours. She was a little frightened when she awoke, to find that she had been sleeping, and she started up and climbed along upon a rock which was near by, until she gained a projecting elevation, and here she began to listen again.

She heard the distant tinkling of a bell.

"Hark," said she. "I hear a bell. It is out that way. I wonder what it is. I will go there and see."

So taking up her pail very carefully, she walked along in the direction where she had heard the bell. She stopped frequently to listen. Sometimes she could hear it, and sometimes she could not. She, however, steadily persevered, though she encountered a great many obstacles on the way. Sometimes there were wet places, which it was very hard to get round. At other times, there were dense thickets, which she had to scramble through, or rocks over which she had to climb, either up or down. The sound, however, of the bell, came nearer and nearer.

"I verily believe," said she at length, "that it is Queen Bess."

Queen Bess was one of Mary Erskine's cows.

The idea that the sound which she was following might possibly be Queen Bess's bell, gave her great courage. She was well acquainted with Queen Bess, having often gone out to see Mary Erskine milk her, with the other cows. She