“Never mind,” said Alice. “I’ve got my thirteenth scratch and my hair’s almost down. I won’t have a hair-pin left by the time we get out of this.”
“I guess Mother will feel bad about my dress, but maybe she won’t mind so much if we take her some wild grapes. She hasn’t had any this year. Oh, bother these burrs!” and Katy stooped down to pick a bunch from her shoe strings and several scattered ones from her white stockings already profusely streaked with green and brown stains.
Gertie bringing up the rear of the little procession was too busy defending her head and face against briars and brush to say anything.
Alice crashed through a particularly matted growth of bushes and gave a shout of triumph. “Here we are, children, and there are grapes—scads of them!”
They found themselves under a low spreading oak that was fairly canopied with huge wild grape vines that hung almost to the ground on three sides, forming a big tent. The grapes were plentiful and the fragrance delicious. But, alas, these were like the grapes the fox found sour, most of them hung high above their reach.
“What a shame—if only the boys were here they might climb!” said Alice disgusted.
“I can climb if you’ll boost me, Alice,” Chicken Little volunteered quickly.
Alice was surveying the tempting fruit thoughtfully.
“I don’t believe you could reach them if you did, Chicken Little. See, you’d have to go clear out on the ends of the branches. Perhaps if we’d go up on the hill above—it’s pretty steep here—we could reach some. It will be hard to get through—there’s a perfect rat’s nest of vines and bushes.”
Chicken Little was already crawling under the overhanging vines. She soon shouted a discovery.