"O no!" said the little girl looking up in some surprise, — "they're not very heavy — I don't want any help."
"Give it to me; you shan't carry 'em both."
"Then take the other one," said Winifred, — "thank you, Miss Elizabeth — I'm just going to take this in to father, in the field here."
"In the field where? I don't see anybody."
"O because the corn is so high. You'll see 'em directly. This is the bend-meadow lot. Father's getting in the corn."
A few more steps accordingly brought them to a cleared part of the field, where the tall and thick cornstalks were laid on the ground. There, at some distance, they saw the group of workers, picking and husking the yellow corn, the farm wagon standing by. Little Winifred crept under the fence and went to them with her basket, and her companions stood at the fence looking. There were Mr. Landholm, and Asahel, Mr. Doolittle and another man, seen here and there through the rows of corn. Asahel sat by a heap, husking; Mr. Landholm was cutting down stalks; and bushel baskets stood about, empty, or with their yellow burden shewing above the top.
"I should think farmer's work would be pleasant enough," Rose remarked, as they stood leaning over the fence.
"It looks pretty," said Elizabeth. "But I shouldn't like to pull corn from morning to night; and I don't believe you would."
"O, but men have to work, you know," said Miss Cadwallader.
Winifred came back to them and they went on their way, but Elizabeth would not let her take the basket again. It was a pretty way; past the spring where Sam Doolittle had pushed Winthrop in and Rufus had avenged him; and then up the rather steep woody road that led to the plain of the tableland. The trees stood thick, but the ascent was so rapid that they could only in places hinder the view; and as the travellers went up, the river spread itself out more broad, and Shahweetah lay below them, its boundaries traced out as on a map. A more commanding view of the opposite shore, a new sight of the southern mountains, a deeper draught from nature's free cup, they gained as they went up higher and higher. Elizabeth had seen it often before; she looked and drank in silence; though to-day September was peeping between the hills and shaking his sunny hair in the vallies; — not crowned like the receding summer with insupportable brilliants.