and then Susie's mamma drove out of the gate and down the long shady arch over the sun-flecked road. Tot wished she was going to the village, too. Tot wished she was going to—to—Sugar River.
ON THE WAY TO SUGAR RIVER.
"Run in to grandmamma, little Tot," whispered the still small voice. But Tot never heeded. Tot was tired. Tot was hot. Tot was homesick. Tot would walk down the road just a few little steps. What harm? How delightful! How grateful the cool green shade! How alluring the long level stretch of road under the arching maples! Where did it lead? It led—O, Tot knew—it led to Sugar River.
Step by step, a little and a little further on the tiny white figure glanced. A sense of happy freedom possessed the little girl. A cloud of golden butterflies beckoned on before. Here a dark thread of water crept down over the hills and splashed musically into the great stone trough. All the way an invisible brooklet gurgled and kept her company. Only one bird seemed to sing at a time—first one, then another. Wasn't it charming? And at the end of it all must be—Tot could see it now in fancy—the fluttering blue ribbon uncurling between sunny sloping banks—Sugar River—fast asleep under the summer sun, on its glittering bed of rock candy. O, rapture! Tot's mouth watered for its sugary delights.
On and on and on, with the brook and the butterflies and the welcoming bird. On, till the maples
stopped and could go no further, and so she left them behind. Out into the open sun-light she came, and only the long, hot, and dazzling road stretched on before.
Tot's small feet trudged on, steadily. Just a little further on—Tot was sure—and then—But how long the road grew, how deep the dust lay, how tired the little feet were getting, little feet that can trudge about all day long in play, yet drag so wearily over long straight roads.
"I sood fink I would tum to Soogar Wiver pwetty soon," she sighed.