"The tree, Miss Lizzie — when Anderese has cut it."
"Can't he carry some home?"
"He'll be a good while about it — if he takes one stick at a time — and we ain't nigh home, neither."
Elizabeth came to a stand, and finally turned in another direction, homewards. But she broke from the path then, and took up the quest in earnest, leading her panting followers over rocks and moss-beds and fallen cedars and tangled vines and undergrowth, which in many places hindered their way. She found trees enough at last, and near enough home; but both she and her companions had had tree-hunting to their satisfaction. Elizabeth commissioned Anderese to find fuel in another way; and herself in some disgust at her new charge, returned to her rock and her bible. She tried to go through with the third chapter of Matthew; and her eye did go over it, though often swimming in tears. But that was the end of her studies at that time. Sorrow claimed the rest of the day for its own, and held the whole ground. Her household and its perplexities — her bible and its teachings — her ignorance and her necessities, — faded away from view; and instead thereof rose up the lost father, the lost home, and the lost friend yet dearer than all.
"What's become of Miss Haye?" whispered Mrs. Nettley late in the evening.
"Don' know," answered Clam. "Melted away — all that can melt, and shaken down — all that can shake, of her. That ain't all, so I s'pose there's somethin' left."
"Poor thing! — no wonder she takes it hard," said the good lady.
"No," said Clam, — she never did take nothin' easy."
"Has she been crying all the afternoon?"
"Don' know," said Clam; "the eye of curiosity ain't invited; but she don't take that easy neither, when she's about it. I've seen her cry — once; she'd do a year o' your crying in half an hour."