After a moment’s contemplation of the lovely place, where a little stream ran trickling and babbling over stones, and where the ferns were high as her head, looking to her like miniature trees themselves, she began to feel almost contented. Open places between the pines let the sunlight through and, where it fell, the wild roses which creep everywhere over that fair land had forced themselves into a home and bloomed away most bravely. Then she espied a scarlet patch of color underneath and found that they were the wild strawberries she loved so well. She cried, scrambling after these:
“Ah! Queenie! You’re not the only one can get something to eat away out here in the woods. I suppose that’s the kind of stream Papa fishes for trout. If I had a line and a hook and—and whatever I needed I could fish, too. But I wouldn’t. I never would like to kill anything, though a trout that somebody else had killed would make a mighty nice dinner right now.”
The berries were plenty, and “enough” of anything is “as good as a feast.” At least they satisfied her immediate hunger as the water from the brook, caught in a little cup made of a big leaf, satisfied her thirst. Queenie slaked her own thirst at the same pool and was so quiet and content that she greatly helped to cheer her small companion.
Finally Molly remembered a maxim she had once taught Dorothy:
“When you’re lost, stay right still in that spot till somebody comes and finds you.” Not always the safest judgment, it may be, but consoling then to this small girl.
Then she continued to converse with the sorrel mare; assuring that calm creature:
“That boy went away out of here, some place, and to go home again he’ll have to come away back. That’s plain enough. Now, you and I are real safe, Queenie, really perfectly safe; if some them mooses or caribous, or deers, or—or things—Let’s not think about them, Queenie. Let’s just wait. Let’s—let’s take a nap if we can, to make the time pass till—till Anton comes.”
She wished she hadn’t happened to think of any “wild beasts” just then and she was astonished to see Queenie take her advice so literally; for down upon that mossy ground dropped the sorrel, did its utmost to work the saddle off its back, and, failing in this, stretched itself on its side and did go to sleep.
Then for a time Molly busied herself in gathering flowers, wherever she caught sight of one, and, thrusting them into her blouse, told Queenie that “these are for that terrible flowery girl, Dorothy C. Oh! I wonder what she is doing now! If she isn’t scraping away on that old fiddle I’ll bet she’s missing me. ’Tisn’t polite for girls to ‘bet,’ Auntie Lu says. Oh! I wish I could see her now. Funny I should be so lonesome, right in the daylight with Queenie here. If I don’t look out I’ll be crying; for I’m getting that awful scared way I was when Anton first went. I’ll lie down too on that pile of ferns and go to sleep—if I can. I hope there aren’t any wigglers of any sort to get into my ears. I’ll put my handkerchief over them and my face on that. Let’s play pretend it’s bedtime, Queenie. Good night.”
There was no response from the weary old horse who had jogged about nearly all that day and Molly waited for none. A merciful drowsiness stole upon her and when she woke again the night was really there. Through the scattered tree-tops she could see the stars shining; close at her feet was the same gentle purring of the little stream, and overhead the soft rustle of pine needles moving lightly in the breeze. But what had wakened her? Something had, she knew. Some sound other than that of the brook or the pines. Queenie too, had heard. She had got to her feet and was listening, was whinnying, as in no fear of whatever thing it was. Molly could dimly see the old horse against the background of gloom but her presence was vast comfort.