id," said Mary Ann. "Mebbe it ain't stealin', but
anyhow I shouldn't dare to go there."

"I shouldn't," agreed Harriet; "an' I know Dan'l and Abijah wouldn't."

Mirandy listened; she thought both Harriet and Mary Ann very wise. She
trusted to their conclusion that it would not be stealing to pick Cap'n
Moseby's berries, but she privately thought she would "dare to."

Mirandy did not know what fear was; dogs did not alarm her in the least;
and as for Cap'n Moseby and his gun, she knew he would not shoot her;
once he had given her some peppermints.

She pulled her bush down painfully, and thought the berries were not
very large, and how fast those in Cap'n Moseby's pasture would fill up.
Harriet's and Mary Ann's voices grew fainter. Mirandy let the bush fly
back, and pushed softly through a tangle of blackberry vines to the
stone-wall; a narrow stretch of rocky land lay between it and the other
which bounded Cap'n Moseby's land. Mirandy stood on tiptoe, and peered
over; then she looked at Jonathan asleep in his little wagon, his yellow
lashes on his pink cheeks, his fat fists doubled up.

Mirandy was loyal, although she was so young, and she had been bidden
not to leave Jonathan. She looked at him, then at the stone-wall; it was
manifestly impossible for her to lift him over that. She took hold of
the little wagon, and pushed it carefully along. She remembered that she
had seen some bars a little farther back.

When she reached the bars, she shook Jonathan until he woke up. He
stared at her in a surprised way, but never cried; he was a good baby.

"Put your arms round sister's neck," ordered Mirandy; and Jonathan
obeyed.

Mirandy tugged him out of his little wagon, and they both rolled over
under a berry bush. Still Jonathan did not cry. He only gurgled a
little, by way of laugh. He thought Mirandy was playing with him.

The bars were close together, and Mirandy could not stir one. Jonathan
gurgled again when his sister rolled him, like a ball, under the lowest
bar, and then rolled under herself. But it was harder for her to tug
Jonathan across to the other bars which guarded Cap'n Moseby's berry
pasture; he could only toddle feebly when led by a strong hand. It was
quite a puzzle for six-year-old Mirandy, but she got him across and
under the other bars; then she set him down in a sweet-fern thicket, and
bade him keep still; and he fell asleep again.

Mirandy picked until she had filled her bucket and rounded it