“The next plan I thought of, was to follow the shore of the brook up. You remember that we came down the brook, in the boat; and of course I knew that, if I went up the brook, either on the water or close to it, upon the shore, I should be going back towards home. I tried this way, but I found that I could not get along.”
“Why couldn’t you get along?” asked Lucy.
“Because,” said Joanna, “the trees and bushes were so thick, and the ground was so wet and swampy, in some places, that I couldn’t get through. Then I came back, and sat down upon a log, near the shore of the pond, and began to cry.”
“And didn’t you ever get home?” said Lucy.
“Certainly,” said Joanna, laughing, “or else how could I be here now to tell the story?”
“O!—yes,” said Lucy. “But how did you get home?”
“Why, pretty soon I thought that the best plan would be for me to stay just where I was, for I thought that as soon as my father and brother should both get home, and find that I was not there, they would come after me; and if they came after me, I knew they would come, first of all, to the place where my brother had told me to go, near the mouth of the brook. So I concluded that I would wait patiently there until they came.
“I waited all the afternoon, and they did not come; and at last the sun went down, and still I was there alone.”
“Why did not they come for you sooner?” asked Lucy.