Josephine and the Partridge.
IV.
Josephine was not used to the woods, and she did not know which way to go to find the road. She had paid no heed to the path by which she had reached the place where the leaves were obtained.
She had been so vexed and angry, because her companions would not let her ride, that she had not even looked to see which way they went when they left her.
She sat on a stump and cried till she was tired of crying, and till she found it would not get her out of the woods. Then she got up, and looked around her; but she could not tell in what direction the road lay from her. She listened, and could hear no sound. It was plain that Katy and Jenny had left her alone.
The solemn stillness of the forest awed her, and she was afraid to stay there, with no human being near her. Once a cat-bird uttered a terrible scream, and Josephine had nearly fainted with terror.
She thought it must be some awful monster to make such a hideous noise, and as soon as she was able to do so, she ran away from the spot as fast as her feet would carry her.
As she hastened through the bushes, and over the dry leaves, a partridge, alarmed by her presence, rose from the ground, and flew away, making a whirring noise with his wings that made Josephine scream with terror.
The poor girl wandered about for two hours in the woods, till she was so tired she could walk no longer. She thought of the Children in the Woods, and others who had been left in the forest, and she was afraid she should never see her friends again.