"But we won't get any supper!" said poor Zara. "And I'm hungry already!"
"We'll find berries and nuts, and we can easily find a spring where we can drink all we want," said Bessie. "I guess we've got to look out for ourselves now, Zara. There's no one else to do it for us."
And Bessie, the meek, the quiet, the subdued, from that moment took command. Always before Zara had seemed the plucky one of the two. She had often urged Bessie to rebel against Maw Hoover's harshness, and it had been always Bessie who had hung back and refused to do anything that might make trouble. But now, when the time for real action had come, and Bessie recognized it, it was she who made the plans and decided what was to be done.
Bessie knew the woods well, far better than Zara. Unerringly she led the way to a spot she knew, where a farm had been allowed to drift back to wild country, and pointed out some cherry trees.
"Some berries aren't good to eat, but I know those cherries," said Bessie. "They used to be the best trees in the whole county years ago—Paw Hoover's told me that. Some believe that they're no good now, because no one has looked after the trees, but I know they're fine. I ate some only the other day, and they're ripe and delicious. So we'll have supper off these trees."
Zara, as active as a little cat, climbed the tree at once, and in a moment she was throwing down the luscious fruit to Bessie, who gathered it in her apron and called to Zara when she had picked enough of the big, round cherries.
"Aren't they good, Zara? Eat as many as you want. They're not like a real supper of meat and potatoes and things like that, you know, but they'll keep us from feeling hungry."
"They certainly will, Bessie. I'd never have known about them. But then I haven't lived long enough in the country to know it the way you do. I've been in cities all my life."
"Yes, and if we get to the city, Zara, you'll know lots of things and be able to tell me all about them. It must be wonderful."
"I suppose it is, Bessie, but I never thought of it that way. It must have been because I was used to everything of that sort. When you see things every day you get so that you don't think anything about them. I used to laugh at people from the country when I'd see them staring up at the high buildings, and jumping when an automobile horn tooted anywhere near them."