“Poor fish!” said Johnny; “swim away, and remember not to nibble at boy’s hooks again. A worm is a very good thing for you when it isn’t at the end of a piece of string.”
The fish gazed at him a little longer, then seeming to take his advice, darted from the rock to where the water was deeper and darker, and was soon lost to sight.
“That’s the place Sidney’s cows came from,” said Johnny, pointing to the opposite side of the stream, where the bushes were torn and trodden, and marks of hoofs were in the mud and grass.
“Let us take off our shoes and stockings and wade over and follow their track, to see where it leads,” cried Nelly; and, suiting the action to the word, the two children soon found themselves bare-footed,—Nell tying her boots to dangle one from each of her apron-strings, and Johnny carrying his in his hands. Nell got her feet in first, but drew back, saying it was cold; so Johnny dashed over, splashing his little bare legs, and leaving a muddy track all across the brook.
“There,” said he, somewhat boastfully, “that’s the way! I am glad I’m not afraid like girls.”
Nelly did not like this treatment, and she was about giving a hasty and angry answer, when, sobered by the recollection of the deep fault she had already committed, by her late untruth, she only said,—
“Sidney was afraid of cows!” and waded slowly and silently through the water.
They found the path to be quite a well-worn one. It was evidently that by which the cows were in the habit of coming to drink. It was pretty, too, and very wild. In a little while, as they left the brook farther and farther behind them, the walking became dry and very good, so that they resumed their shoes, but not their stockings,—Johnny stating that he hated the latter, and would rather “scratch himself to pieces” on the blackberry thorns than put them on again. The shade was very pleasant. Once or twice they paused to rest on the large stones which were scattered here and there through the path, but this was not for any great length of time; they wandered on and on, taking no note of time, nor of their prolonged absence from their companions, but enjoying every thing they saw, and wishing all the days in the year were like this one.
The openings in the trees were very few; they were penetrating, although they did not know it, into the very heart of the wood. Once, and once only, they caught a glimpse, through the branches, of a small clearing. Half-burned stumps still showed themselves amid the rank grass. On the top of an elevation, at one side of this clearing, a horse was quietly grazing. As he moved, Johnny saw he was lame, and from this the children judged that, like the cows, he was turned out to pasture for the summer. As Nelly parted the bushes to look at him, he gave a frightened start, and began to paw the grass. He still stood on the little hill, in beautiful relief against the soft blue of the sky, the rising breeze of the coming sunset blowing his long, black mane and tail gracefully in the air as the children turned away to pursue their journey. The cow-path soon branched into others more winding and narrow than the one they had just quitted. The time since dinner had passed so rapidly and happily, that they did not dream night was coming, or that they had strayed too far away from their companions. The wild flowers grew so thickly, and the mosses were of such surprising softness and length, that it was scarcely any wonder they forgot their teacher’s parting injunction.
When night at last really began to approach, and Nelly looked anxiously around at the gathering twilight in the woods, Johnny said it was nothing but the natural shadows of the trees, and so they concluded to go on a little farther to gather a few of the laurel blossoms they saw growing amid their shining green leaves, a short distance beyond. When they had reached this spot, and captured the desired treasures, Nelly saw with dismay, that the path ended abruptly against the side of an immense rock, quite as large, she thought, as the whole of the farm-house at home.