She had borrowed the coal shovel from Winnie a few days previous and with much effort and earnestness, had planted a plump seed from an apple in a sunny, open space in the orchard. The apple was exceedingly green, but aside from doubtful fertility, the seed was doomed never to sprout because of the overwhelming curiosity of its small planter. Sarah had "looked" at that seed each day since planting it.
"If all these trees didn't grow any faster than my seed," mourned Sarah, scratching around in the soil with an oyster shell, the shovel having been confiscated by Winnie, "I don't see how people get any apples to eat."
Then a large—a very large—black ant hurrying up the trunk of a young pear tree, caught her eye and she stopped to study him. She thought for a moment of writing her name and address on a piece of paper and tying it to him so that at some distant date, say a hundred years ahead, another little girl might find the ant and read that Sarah had also known him.
"If a turtle lives sixty years, why can't an ant live a hundred?" Sarah asked the black crow who sat on a branch and stared at her. "Only, I haven't any paper or pencil or thread to tie it on with—so I'll wait."
With this sensible conclusion she turned her attention to the swing Warren had put up for her and Shirley on a conveniently low limb of an apple tree. Sarah did not swing sedately—she must do that as she did everything else, fast and furiously. She took out the notched board that served as a seat and stood up in the loop, jerking herself forward and backward until she attained the desired speed. Swooping down in one of these mad rushes, she caught sight of something moving in the next field.
"There's the ram!" she thought. "I'll go see what he looks like"; and jumping out of the swing she ran over to the wire fence that enclosed the orchard on three sides.
"He doesn't look cross—you're not, are you?" said Sarah, addressing the Roman-nosed wooly creature that stood gravely regarding her.
The flock of sheep were up at the other end of the field and the ram stood alone. Perhaps he had glimpsed the flashing of Sarah's frock through the trees as she swung and had come down to see what made the fluttering. Sarah was quite enchanted with him and thought he looked lonely.
She dropped to her knees and crawled through the fence, holding back the heavy wire strands with difficulty, and sat down on the grass to pull up her socks, brush her hair out of her eyes and tuck in a handful of gathers at her waistline where her skirt had torn loose from the band.
Having made herself neat for the introduction, Sarah advanced fearlessly to greet the ram. To her surprise he came toward her with lowered head, and something in his wicked little eyes made her uneasy. The next thing she knew, she felt a terrific impact against her legs and down she went with a thud. She had presence enough of mind to roll over and she kept rolling, in a frantic instinct to get out of the way of that powerful head. Dizzy and shaken—for she had fallen heavily—she scrambled to her feet and began to run, the ram coming after her valiantly.