"I don't s'pose 'twould," rejoined Harriet, hotly. "I guess if anything is free, berry pastures are. Who planted berry bushes, I'd like to know?"
"I s'pose the Lord did," said Mary Ann. "Mebbe it ain't stealin', but anyhow I shouldn't dare to go there."
"I shouldn't," agreed Harriet; "an' I know Dan'l and Abijah wouldn't."
Mirandy listened; she thought both Harriet and Mary Ann very wise. She trusted to their conclusion that it would not be stealing to pick Cap'n Moseby's berries, but she privately thought she would "dare to."
Mirandy did not know what fear was; dogs did not alarm her in the least; and as for Cap'n Moseby and his gun, she knew he would not shoot her; once he had given her some peppermints.
She pulled her bush down painfully, and thought the berries were not very large, and how fast those in Cap'n Moseby's pasture would fill up. Harriet's and Mary Ann's voices grew fainter. Mirandy let the bush fly back, and pushed softly through a tangle of blackberry vines to the stone-wall; a narrow stretch of rocky land lay between it and the other which bounded Cap'n Moseby's land. Mirandy stood on tiptoe, and peered over; then she looked at Jonathan asleep in his little wagon, his yellow lashes on his pink cheeks, his fat fists doubled up.
Mirandy was loyal, although she was so young, and she had been bidden not to leave Jonathan. She looked at him, then at the stone-wall; it was manifestly impossible for her to lift him over that. She took hold of the little wagon, and pushed it carefully along. She remembered that she had seen some bars a little farther back.
When she reached the bars, she shook Jonathan until he woke up. He stared at her in a surprised way, but never cried; he was a good baby.
"Put your arms round sister's neck," ordered Mirandy; and Jonathan obeyed.
Mirandy tugged him out of his little wagon, and they both rolled over under a berry bush. Still Jonathan did not cry. He only gurgled a little, by way of laugh. He thought Mirandy was playing with him.