"I don't know; I'm gettin' ruther uneasy."
"I know one thing—I shouldn't let him go off so, without somebody older with him, if he was my boy."
"Well, I don't know what I can do," returned Mrs. Rose, uneasily. "There ain't anybody to go with him. I can't go diggin' sassafras-root, and you can't, and his uncle Hiram's too busy, and grandfather is too stiff. And he is so crazy to go after sassafras-root, it does seem a pity to tell him he sha'n't. I never saw a child so possessed after the root and sassafras-tea, as he is, in my life. I s'pose it's good for him. I hate to deny him when he takes so much comfort goin'. There he is now!"
Little Willy Rose crossed the road, and toiled up the stone steps. The front yard was terraced, and two flights of stone steps led up to the front door. He was quite breathless when he stood on the top step; his round, sweet face was pink, his fair hair plastered in flat locks to his wet forehead. His little trousers and his shoes were muddy, and he carried a great scraggy mass of sassafras-roots. "I see you a-settin' out here," he panted, softly.
"You ought not to have stayed so long. We began to be worried about you," said his mother, in a fond voice. "Now go and take your muddy shoes right off, and put on your slippers; then you can sit down at the back door and clean your sassafras, if you want to."
"I got lots," said Willy, smiling sweetly, and wiping his forehead. "Look-a-there, Miss Elviry."
"So you did," returned Miss Elvira. "I suppose, now, you think you'll have some sassafras-tea."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I guess I'll steep him a little for supper, he's so crazy for it," said Mrs. Rose, when Willy had disappeared smilingly around the corner.
"Yes, I would. It's real wholesome for him. Who's that comin'?"