"Yes," said Cherry, absently. "I asked the woman how much they cost, and she said twenty-five cents, but that they would be ten by a week more."
"I wish that we could pick a few bushels from the great banks of them that stretch along by the brook that I have told you about."
"Are there so many as that?" Cherry's voice was full of astonishment, and Pidgie looked up from her book, and began to grow interested.
"Oh yes," said her mother, "and back on the hill there are banks more that open later."
Cherry thought hard that night until she fell asleep. The next day she had a long conversation with Mrs. Lester, and at night she had another one with her mother.
"Dear Cherry," Mrs. Mullen said, as Cherry rose at last to cover the fire and go to bed, "if you can get the money, and if you feel sure that you can take the whole charge of Belle and all, why, I'll write up to my old school-mate, Mrs. Rogers—how I'd love to see her again!—and I'm sure that she would keep you; but I don't see how you'll ever do it."
But in less than a week after this conversation, such was Cherry's business-like promptness, a hack came to the door and bore Cherry and pale little Belle, in whose tired eyes a new light was shining, to the railroad station; and late in the afternoon they alighted at the door of the big, old-fashioned mansion in Clearpond, where Mrs. Rogers lived, and where they were very near the house in which Mrs. Mullen had lived twenty years before. Alas! the dear grandfather and grandmother and the uncles and aunts were all dead or scattered now!
Belle had borne the journey wonderfully well. It is amazing how much happiness will help us to bear!
The secret of all this was that Cherry, as you must have already suspected, had determined in her own quick, brave little mind, to take Belle and come up into the country to pick May-flowers!
Early the next morning, having fixed Belle up as well as she could, and promising to bring her some May-flowers by noon, Cherry set off to see what she could see.