So go two of the roads. The other road does lead to the upper logging camps. It goes only a little way from the ranch-house and it comes to a rivière. Long time ago, this road did have a longing to go across the rivière. Some wise people did have understandings and they did build it a bridge to go across on. It went across the bridge and it goes on and on between the hills—the hills where dwell the talking fir trees. By its side goes the railroad track. Its appears are not so nice as are the appears of the road, and it has got only a squeaky voice. But this railroad track does have shining rails—they stretch away and away, like a silver ribbon that came from the moon in the night. I go a-walking on these rails. I get off when I do hear the approaches of the dinky engine. On this track on every day, excepting Sunday, comes and goes the logging train. It goes to the camps and it does bring back cars of logs and cars of lumber. These it does take to the mill town. There engines more big do take the cars of lumber to towns more big.
Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus has been waiting in my sunbonnet a long time. He wants to go on explores. Too, Brave Horatius and Isaiah are having longings in their eyes. And I hear Peter Paul Rubens squealing in the pig-pen. Now I go. We go on explores.
[CHAPTER II
How Lars Porsena of Clusium Got Opal into Trouble, and how Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael and Sadie McKibben Gave her Great Comfort.]
To-day was a warm, hot day. It was warm in the morning and hot at noon. Before noon and after noon and after that, I carried water to the hired men in the field in a jug. I got the water out of the pump to put into the jug. I had to put water in the pump before any would come out. The men were glad to have that water in the jug.
While I was taking the water in the jug to the men in the field, from her sewing-basket Lars Porsena of Clusium took the mamma’s thimble, and she did n’t have it and she could n’t find it. She sent me to watch out for it in the house and in the yard and everywhere. I know how Lars Porsena of Clusium has a fondness for collecting things of bright colors, like unto my fondness for collecting rocks; so I ran to his hiding-place in the old oak tree. There I found the mamma’s thimble; but she said the pet crow’s having taken it was as though I had taken it, because he was my property; so I got a spanking with the hazel switches that grow near unto our back steps. Inside me I could n’t help feeling she ought to have given me thanks for finding the thimble.
Afterwards I made little vases out of clay. I put them in the oven to bake. The mamma found my vases of clay. She threw them out the window. When I went to pick them up, they were broken. I felt sad inside. I went to talk things over with my chum, Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael. He is that most tall fir tree that grows just back of the barn. I scooted up the barn door. From there I climbed onto the lower part of the barn roof. I walked up a ways. Up there I took a long look at the world about. One gets such a good wide view of the world from a barn roof. After, I looked looks in four straight ways and four corner ways. I said a little prayer. I always say a little prayer before I jump off the barn into the arms of Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael, because that jump is quite a long jump, and if I did not land in the arms of Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael, I might get my leg or neck broken. That would mean I’d have to keep still a long time. Now I think that would be the most awful thing that could happen, for I do so love to be active. So I always say a little prayer and do that jump in a careful way. To-day, when I did jump, I did land right proper in that fir tree. It is such a comfort to nestle up to Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael when one is in trouble. He is such a grand tree. He has an understanding soul.
After I talked with him and listened unto his voice, I slipped down out of his arms. I intended to slip into the barn corral, but I slid off the wrong limb in the wrong way. I landed in the pig-pen on top of Aphrodite, the mother-pig. She gave a peculiar grunt. It was not like those grunts she gives when she is comfortable.
I felt I ought to do something to make up to her for having come into her home out of the arms of Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael instead of calling on her in the proper way. I decided a good way to make it up to her would be to pull down the rail fence in that place where the pig-pen is weak, and take her for a walk. I went to the wood-shed. I got a piece of clothes-line rope. While I was making a halter for the mother-pig, I took my Sunday-best hair-ribbon—the blue ribbon the Uncle Henry gave to me. I made a bow on that halter. I put the bow just over her ears. That gave her the proper look. When the mamma saw us go walking by, she took the bow from off the pig. She put that bow in the trunk; me she put under the bed.