in very feeble health, and now
wanted some medicines. Dorothy had been over at the house where she
lived that day, and had found that the doctor had left her a
prescription; but she had nobody to send for it, and she was not quite
able to go herself. So Dorothy told her that if she would let her have
the money, she would ask Rollo or Jonas to go.

So Sarah gave her a dollar bill, and in order to keep it safe, she put
it in a little morocco wallet, and tied it up securely with a string.
This wallet was what Dorothy was looking for, in her work-table. She
took it out, and untied the string. She opened the wallet, and showed
Rollo the money in one of the pockets, and a small piece of white paper,
upon which was written the names of the medicines which the doctor
wished Sarah to take. Such a writing is called a _prescription_.

Rollo looked at the prescription to see what sort of medicines it was
that he was to get, but he could not read it. The words were short and
strange, and had periods at the end of them,--which Rollo told Dorothy
was wrong, as periods ought to be only at the end of a sentence. Then
there were strange characters and marks at the ends of the lines; and
Rollo, after examining it attentively, said he could not read a word of
it, and he did not believe that the apothecary could. However, he said
he was willing to take it to him, and let him try.

He accordingly put the prescription back again carefully into the
wallet, and Dorothy tied it up. Then he put it into his pocket, and went
out to James. He found James waiting by the gate, and they both walked
along together.

He and James had each a book to put their blue-bells in. They walked
along, talking about their flowers, until at length they reached the
bridge. Just beyond it was the rocky precipice, with shrubs and
evergreens growing upon the shelves and in the crevices, and spaces
between the rocks. It towered up pretty high above the road, and the
declivity extended also down to the brook below the bridge, forming one
side of the deep ravine across which the bridge was built. There was a
very large, old hemlock-tree growing upon a small piece of level ground
between the ravine and the higher part of the precipice. Under this
hemlock-tree was a large, smooth, flat stone, where the boys used very
often to come and sit, when they came to play among these rocks.

[Illustration]

The boys rambled about among the rocks, sometimes down in the ravine and