“I’m awful hungry,” sighed Phil.
No one exactly liked to propose going home, yet what else was there to do? It was too late, they thought, to start out again in search of pastures new, and yet, how could they go home and encounter the teasing that would surely follow the tale of the day’s experience.
“If only we had some berries!” groaned Rose.
“That horrid old snake,” said Daisy, looking fearfully around. “We would have had some, anyway, excepting for his chasing us away.”
Cricket had been sitting still, where she had tumbled. Now she got up slowly and picked up her pail and basket.
“I’m going home,” she said, decidedly. “I think we’ve had a very nice day, if we didn’t get any blackberries. Papa always buys them, anyway, of that poor little girl that brings them down from the hills, and she needs the money.”
“If Cricket goes,” said Edna, jumping up with great alacrity, “of course we must all go with her. It must be most supper-time, anyway.”
The depressed looking group presently found themselves at the edge of the woods.
“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Cricket, stopping short, “if there aren’t Thomas and the oxen at the bars! Papa has sent him, after all. Hollo, Thomas, did you come to meet us?”
Thomas stared as they approached.