half way up to school,
by the side of the road. We always stop there to rest, coming
home. Three of the girls come the same way as far as that, and
we always save some of our dinner to eat up there, and we tell
stories. I tell them about dancing-school, and the time we went
to the theatre to see "Cinderella," and going shopping with
mother, and our little tea-parties, and the Dutch dolls we made
up in the long front chamber. O, _don't_ you remember, Laura?
What different pieces we have got into our remembrances
already! I feel as if I was making patchwork. Some-time,
may-be, I shall tell somebody about living _here_. Well, they
will be beautiful stories! Homesworth is an elegant place to
live in. You will see when you come next summer.

There is an apple tree down in the south orchard that bends
just like a horse's back. Then the branches come up over your
head and shade you. We ride there, and we sit and eat summer
apples there. Little rosy apples with dark streaks in them all
warm with the sun. You can't think what a smell they have, just
like pinks and spice boxes. Why don't they keep a little way
off from each other in cities, and so have room for apple
trees? I don't see why they need to crowd so. I hate to think
of you all shut up tight when I am let right out into green
grass, and blue sky, and apple orchards. That puts me in mind
of something! Zebiah Jane, Aunt Oldways' girl, always washes
her face in the morning at the pump-basin out in the back
dooryard, just like the ducks. She says she can't spatter round
in a room; she wants all creation for a slop-bowl. I feel as if
we had all creation for everything up here. But I can't put all
creation in a letter if I try. _That_ would spatter dreadfully.

I expect a long letter from you every day now. But I don't see
what you will make it out of. I think I have got all the
_things_ and you won't have anything left but the _words_. I am
sure you don't sit out on the wood-shed at Aunt Oferr's, and I
don't believe you pound stones and bricks, and make colors. Do
you know when we rubbed our new shoes with pounded stone and
made them gray?

I never told you about Luclarion. She came up as soon as the
things were all sent off, and she lives at the minister's.
Where she used to live i