CHAPTER XVI.
A FLOWER SALE.
“Oh, look! Look over there!” exclaimed Marty. “What are those lovely white flowers?”
“Wild clematis,” replied Evaline.
“O Hiram, wont you please stop and let us get some?” pleaded Marty. “I'd like so much to take some to mamma.”
Hiram was obliged to go to Black's Mills on an errand that morning, and Marty and Evaline had been allowed to go with him for the ride. Returning he had driven around by another road, as he said one of the horses had lost a shoe, and this road, though longer, was less stony, and therefore easier for the horse than the other. Besides it would take them by McKay's blacksmith-shop, where he could get the horse shod.
It was when going through a valley, which the country folks called “the bottom,” that they saw the clematis. It was growing in the greatest profusion in the meadows and the woods on both sides of the road, rambling over bushes, rocks, fences, everything, with its great starry clusters of white blossoms.
“I don't think you had better go after any,” said Hiram in reply to Marty's request. “Them low places are muddy after the rain yesterday, and your ma might be angry if you was to go home with your shoes all muddied. Besides, there may be snakes under them bushes.”
“Snakes! Oh, dear!” said Marty with a shudder. “But I should like some of those flowers for mamma.”