"Yes," said Mary Erskine. "You shall be the third scholar. I am going to teach you to draw."
"Do you know how to draw?" asked Mary Bell, surprised.
"No," said Mary Erskine, "but I can show you how to learn."
"Well," said Mary Bell, "I should like to learn to draw very much indeed. Though I don't see how any body can teach a thing unless they can do it themselves."
"Sometimes they can," said Mary Erskine. "A man may teach a horse to canter, without being able to canter himself."
Mary Bell laughed at the idea of a man attempting to canter, and said that she should be very glad to try to learn to draw. Mary Erskine then said that after they had finished their breakfast the children might go out an hour to walk and play, and that then when they should come in, they would find every thing ready for the school.
Mary Bell concluded to take a walk about the farm during the time which they were allowed to spend in play, before the school was to begin. So she and Bella put on their bonnets, and bidding Mary Erskine good morning, they sallied forth. As they came out at the great stoop door their attention was arrested by the sound of a cow-bell. The sound seemed to come from the barn-yard.
"Ah," said Mary Bell, "there is Queen Bess going to pasture this morning. How glad I was to see her yesterday in the woods! Let us go and see her now."
So saying she led the way around the corner of the house, by a pleasant path through the high grass that was growing in the yard, toward the barns. Bella followed her. They passed through a gate, then across a little lane, then through a gate on the other side of the lane, which led into the barn-yards. The barns, like the house, were built of logs, but they were very neatly made, and the yards around them were at this season of the year dry and green.
Mary and Bella walked on across the barn-yard until they got to the back side of the barn, when they found Thomas turning the cows into a little green lane which led to the pasture. It was not very far to the pasture bars, and so Mary Bell proposed that they should go and help Thomas drive the cows. They accordingly went on, but they had not gone far before they came to a brook, which here flowed across the lane. The cows walked directly through the brook, while Thomas got across it by stepping over some stones at one side. Mary Bell thought that the spaces were a little too wide for Bella to jump over, so she concluded not to go any farther in that direction.