In the mean time, little Nathan, who had been left in his wagon in the path-way, and who was yet too young to appreciate the pleasure and the utility of making botanical collections, began to make a sort of murmuring sound, which indicated restlessness and discontent.
“Yes, Nathan,” said Rollo, calling out to him, “we’ll come in a minute.”
Royal crept up softly towards the squirrel, with his cap in the air, ready to make him prisoner. Rollo and Lucy looked on with great interest, while Nathan, who had not yet learned to place much confidence in promises, seemed still more uneasy. The squirrel stuffed the remains of his nut into his cheek, leaped off the log, and ran along upon the ground.
“You go and take care of Nathan,” said Royal, “and I’ll run and catch the squirrel. You can go and help him, Lucy.”
“But we want to see you catch the squirrel,” said Lucy.
“O, never mind that,” said Royal, looking back towards them, and speaking in a hurried manner, as he crept along after the squirrel; “I shall have to chase him ever so far, and you can’t keep up; but you shall have a share in him just the same, when I catch him. So run back and take care of Nathan.”
Thus urged, the two children went back to the road, while Royal went on in pursuit of the squirrel. Lucy and Rollo showed Nathan their leaves and flowers, and gave him a large lily to pull to pieces. By these means they had just succeeded in getting him quiet and amused, when Rollo saw a cow walking slowly along the path, towards the place where they and the wagon were standing. This threw the children into a state of great alarm; for, although the cow was really innocent of any bad design, the children thought they saw in her countenance a very determined and threatening expression. They thought she was coming to bite them, or at least that she would certainly run over Nathan.
Rollo’s first design was, to look around for a stick, and drive her away, which, on the whole, would have been the most judicious plan. But Lucy, being a girl, was naturally more inclined to retreat than to give battle; and she called upon Rollo to help her draw the wagon out of the road, so as to give the cow the opportunity to get by. They accordingly took hold of the tongue of the wagon, and, turning it short round, began to pull hard upon it, to get their little charge out of the danger.
In their eagerness and trepidation, however, they turned the tongue too short about, so as to lock one of the fore wheels under the wagon, and then, as very often happens under such circumstances, by the violence of their effort the wagon was upset; and Nathan, the fragments of the lily, the picture-book, and the cushion on which Nathan had been seated, all rolled out together upon the ground. The cow paid no attention whatever to their terror and distress, but walked by very deliberately on the other side.