The crows, too, collected in great gossiping parties, in the pines, over on the shore of the pond, and they always seemed to be congratulating themselves over something immensely satisfactory.
But we children, especially the girls, found it very dull after we had seen the few sights of the farm. The boys were trying to hunt and fish; but Lib and I talked that over, and we came to the conclusion, after much laughing and many caustic remarks, that the only amusement we had was, laughing at their failures.
We communicated that fact to them, but it didn’t seem to make any difference; off they went on the same fruitless hunt, and left us to do what we might, to make ourselves happy.
The next day, Lib and Dora and I told them we would go into the woods with them and see what the charm was. Lib was the eldest of us three, and had read a great deal, and she said:
“May be we shall find the robbers’ cave, and if we say, ‘Open Sesame,’ the great stone doors will slowly swing open, and we can go in where the chains of flashing gems and the heaps of golden coin are.”
“I think you’ll get into places where you can’t get out; ‘open sesame’ will never lift you out of a marsh hole,” said William Pitt Gaylord, our eldest brother.
“Mollie, you can find somebody to have a talking match with, for there are lots of chipmunks over in the grove,” remarked Hugh.
“I’ve seen snakes in that very woods, too, and if you’d holler, Lib, at that end of the pond, as you do at this end of the tea-table, you wouldn’t catch any fish,” said William. This caused an uproarious laugh on the part of the boys.
We listened quietly to their sarcastic remarks, knowing they were prompted by an unreasonable desire to monopolize the delights of the woods to themselves.
William Pitt remarked that “Girls had no business to meddle with boys’ sports, and they’d come to grief if they did; you’d see!”