CHAPTER III
THE GATE IN THE ORCHARD
Caro was in great haste to tell Marjorie about her candle, and when she went skipping around the corner next morning she met Marjorie skipping in her direction.
“Why I was coming to see you,” they both exclaimed.
Marjorie’s father was a younger brother of Caro’s grandfather, and their home was not far from the seminary. The little girls had already become good friends, but as Marjorie had been out of town with her mother they had not seen each other for several days.
“You come to my house, Caro, for I have something to show you,” her cousin said.
“Well, let’s go to the orchard then,” Caro suggested.
One of the many pleasant things about Charmington was that it combined the delights of city and country. Down on Main street there were stores large enough to supply all reasonable desires, and yet five minutes’ walk in any direction brought you to the region of wide lawns and forest trees; and back of some of the pretty dwellings were orchards and gardens in which you could easily forget there was a town anywhere about. So it was in the Barrows orchard, for years a favorite playground for the children of the family.
Marjorie had some paper dolls and a new book to show Caro, and these they carried with them.
“Let’s run, so Tom won’t see us and want to come,” she said.
Little Tom Turner who lived next door, was in her opinion only useful as a playmate when she had no one else, or to make up the necessary number in some game, usually it was more fun to run away from him. So they raced through the long grass, brown curls and flaxen braids bobbing up and down in their haste.