"She might have taken that by mistake," he thought.
It was a long search before Benjamin came upon the little girl asleep on the ground, with her hands full of gentians. "Oh, Jane, Jane, wake up and come quickly! The wolves or the Indians might find us!"
Together they ran down the path to the turn and up the right one to the church, which they reached just as the people came out, troubled by the disappearance of Benjamin. A searching party came from the opposite direction, and Jane's father caught his little girl up in his arms, while Benjamin told his part of the story. His father proudly patted him on the back and swung him up on the saddle, but little Jane scrambled to her feet and darting to his side reached up her plump little hand, exclaiming, "I picked these gentians for you, Benjamin!"
THE CHURCH LAW
It was now 1675. Four years had passed since Jane Fryer gathered the gentians for Benjamin. Her father, Jonathan Fryer, had moved from the neighborhood of the meeting-house far up the river-side, where he found better land for cultivation. He still held a strong church interest and built for his family a small shed at the rear of the meeting-house. Here they could warm themselves by a hearth fire before the service in the unheated building and take a hot dinner before the long walk home.
Jane was now an energetic girl of ten. One February afternoon she rested her bucket of water on the icy edge of the well as she watched her father striding homeward down the hill slope. As he reached her, he picked up the heavy bucket and entered the house, where his boy Tom was placing a huge log on the fire, and his wife stood ready to fill the kettle with water and hang it on the crane. Jane had followed her father and waited with expectant silence until Jonathan Fryer announced—
"I am going to Boston!"
"Father!" exclaimed Tom.