old
sweet-bough tree: the greenish-yellow, almost translucent globes
dotted the lush, warm grass, their languorous sweet filled the
air. Selecting a dozen thoughtfully, she added them to the
donkey's load, and they went on at a foot pace, through the
slowly reddening Baldwins and seek-no-furthers, the tiny
lady-apples and the king-of-Tompkins-counties, through the
belt of dead, warped fruit trees, blighted and gray--"like
those Dore pictures," she murmured to Rose-Marie--down three,
crumbling brick steps, where the little fellow picked his way
as daintily as a careful lady, and across the dusty road into
a pasture trail that led to a wood stretch, sparse at first,
thicker as one plunged in deeper. The sun filtered through in
delicious diamonds; here and there a resinous pine, steeped in
heat, threw out a cloud of balmy odor; a chipmunk scuttered
across their path, clicking nervously, only to squat on his
haunches and stare beadily at Rose-Marie, taut with quivering
curiosity. Caroline scowled at him.

"Rise of the Dutch Republic!" she muttered angrily. "I think not!"

The chipmunk winked sympathetically.

"Your father says it's as interesting as any novel" (with startling
mimicry of the piazza voice). "I notice _they_ don't read it!"

The chipmunk's place was empty; only a slight stir among the leaves
marked his path.

Caroline's eyes widened, grew dreamy. She leaned her sharp elbows on
Rose-Marie's hairy back and threw her weight on him thoughtfully: he
checked and stood like a table.

"Do you suppose there really are regular roads through the trees,
like the monkeys took Mowgli on?" she queried.

Rose-Marie waved his long, hairy ears meditatively, but said
nothing.

"I don't mean in any fairy way," she explained hastily, "but just
scientifically. It might be. Corners and turns and short-cuts--why
not? they all know them. He may be running home by a back way, now,
to call his children to look at Rose-Marie; it's as good as a whole
circus parade to them, I suppose. And they talk to each other...."

Held in a muse, she leaned against the donkey; the moments slipped
by. She lost all count of time. Her eyes stared emptily at some
sunny flicker, some dappled pattern of leaf work; her ears were
filled with the forest drone, the mysterious murmur made up of so
many nameless instruments that only the Great Conductor can classify
and number them. Time ceased to be.

At length she woke with a start, shook herself