Doré." (She pronounced it "Door.") "The book was one of my mother's wedding presents. It always lies on our parlor table. I don't believe any one[Pg 20] else in our house has ever read it but Genevieve and me. I love it, and Genevieve likes to look at the pictures. Did you ever hear of that poem?" [Pg 20] "Oh, yes!" cried Doris. "My father has often read me to sleep with it, and we all love it. I'm so glad it is a favorite of yours. Do you like poetry?" "That's about the only poem I know," acknowledged Sally, "'cept the ones in the school readers—and they don't amount to much. That book's about the only one we have 'cept a Bible and a couple of novels. But I've learned the poem all by heart." She rowed on a way in silence, while Doris marvelled at the bookless condition of this lonely child and wondered how she could stand it. Not to have books and papers and magazines unnumbered was a state unheard of to the city child. She had brought half a trunkful with her, to help while away the time at Manituck. But before she could speak of it, Sally remarked: "That's Huckleberry Heights,—at least[Pg 21] I've named it that, 'cause Genevieve and I have picked quarts and quarts of huckleberries there." She pointed to a high, sandy bluff, overgrown at the top with scrub-oak, stunted pines and huckleberry bushes. "And that's Cranberry Creek," she went on, indicating a winding stream that emptied into the river nearby. "'Way up that creek there's an old, deserted mill that's all falling to pieces. It's kind of interesting. Want to go sometime?" [Pg 21] "Oh, I'm crazy to!" cried Doris. "There's nothing I enjoy more than exploring things, and I've never had the chance to before. We've always gone to such fashionable places where everything's just spic and span and cut and dried, and nothing to do but what every one else does. I'm deathly sick of that sort of thing. Our doctor recommended Mother to come to this place because the sea and pine air would be so good for her. But he said it was wild, and different from the usual summer places, and I was precious glad of the change, I can tell you." There was something so sincere[Pg 22] in Doris's manner that it won Sally over another point. After a few moments of silent rowing, she said: [Pg 22] "We're coming to a place, in a minute, that Genevieve and I like a lot. If you want, we can land there and get a dandy drink of water from a spring near the
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