Jessie shook her head decidedly. “No, I don’t think you ought. Of course I’d love to have you, but it would be disobeying; even doing it once would be disobeying.”
“It is very hard to be perfectly good,” returned Adele woefully.
“Yes, it is,” sighed Jessie, “but when we are sure a thing is wrong we ought not to do it. Sometimes you aren’t quite sure, and sometimes you forget. Forgetting is my worst sin,” she added solemnly.
“I don’t know what mine is, my very worst, I mean. When I begin to think about them I am afraid to go to bed at night.”
“Oh! Mother always——” began Jessie and then she remembered that there was no mother to whom Adele could unburden her conscience and from whom she could receive loving advice and comfort. She therefore changed the subject quickly. “I am going to get the string and the chips,” she said, “and I will send you over a load of persimmons. Do you like them? I brought some with me this morning. They are so good now that we have had frost. I don’t suppose I can send more than one or two at a time.”
Adele was delighted at the prospect of receiving such a valuable cargo which by dint of a long switch Jessie managed to pilot safely over to a spot where Adele could reach it. The second expedition was not so successful, however, but was lost in the raging torrent before it was half-way across. When a vessel is only six inches long it is very hard to navigate among the whirlpools of an uncertain stream. Nevertheless at least half a dozen persimmons reached the other shore and were duly consumed by the person to whom they were consigned.
“There will be chestnuts pretty soon,” said Jessie. “I shouldn’t wonder if there were some now. We might go and get some. Oh, I forgot they are on this side. Never mind, I will get Sam to gather some and to-morrow I can send you over a lot. I can put them in a basket and tie the basket on a long pole and in that way I can reach them over to you. Oh, I wonder if the boys took all those they gathered. I am going to the barn to see, and if they didn’t I’ll bring all I can. Just wait a minute.”
She ran off to the barn and pretty soon came back. She stopped on the way to put something in the grotto, and then went on to the brook with a small covered basket. “I’d better tie it on this pole,” she said, “for it might fall off. It is full of chestnuts. When you have emptied them send the basket back to me, and I will put something else in it.”
“What will you put in it?” asked Adele watching Jessie tie the basket securely to the pole.
“That is a secret,” said Jessie laughing.