“I never was so tired in all my life,” she declared.
“We will take a good rest and eat our corn-bread,” responded Anna. “I am sure the remainder of the way will not be so hard, because we can follow the river up to the settlement.”
Rebby was too tired to reply. She stretched herself out on the warm grass and closed her eyes.
“Poor Rebby,” thought Danna, looking down at her elder sister and remembering that Rebecca had never enjoyed woodland tramps, and realizing that this undertaking was much harder for her sister than for herself.
“She’s asleep,” Anna whispered to herself, with a little smile of satisfaction. “Now I will have a fine surprise for her when she awakes,” and the little girl tiptoed noiselessly back to the edge of the woods, where she had noticed a quantity of checkerberry leaves. There were many crimson berries still clinging to the vines, and Anna picked these carefully, using her cap for a basket, and gathering a quantity of the young checkerberry leaves. “Rebby is sure to like these,” she thought happily.
Anna’s sharp glance moved about quickly and finally rested near an old stump.
“Partridge eggs!” she exclaimed joyfully, and in a moment she was beside the stump peering down at a circle of small brownish eggs. She counted them, and before she had whispered “twenty!” a whirring, scrambling noise close at hand told her that the partridge to whom the eggs belonged was close at hand.
“You won’t miss a few eggs, Mistress Partridge,” said Anna soberly, carefully selecting four from the outer edge of the circle, and then going softly away, that she might not unnecessarily frighten the woodland bird.
She now carried the cap with great care, as she looked about hoping to discover some sign of a woodland spring. She kept along at the edge of the woods, and very soon she heard the sound of a noisy little brook hurrying along to the river. It was not far up the river from the place where Rebby was so comfortably asleep, and Anna decided that it would be just the place for their noonday luncheon.
She set the cap, with all its treasures, carefully under the shade of a tiny fir tree near the side of the brook and then ran back to awaken Rebby.