crashing along behind her, but Berry’s boast of being a swift runner was well proved; the woodsman could not overtake her. Berry smiled to herself as she heard him floundering about through the thickets. She was not at all afraid29 of being caught, for she knew all the forest ways, and many a hiding-place. She kept very quiet, however, and did not venture out from behind the stump until a hovering flock of nuthatches, who had been scolding vigorously at being disturbed, settled down in a near-by thicket.   

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     “He’s gone,” she whispered, and stepped cautiously out; “he didn’t come this way or the nuthatches would not have stopped flying.”   

     Berry peered sharply about, however, as she made her way noiselessly from tree to tree, stopping often to listen for any sound that might mean she was being followed, but, except for the far-off call of woodland birds, the forest was quiet. Berry was sure the man had given up trying to find her, and hastened down the ridge to the Braggs’     cabin. She said nothing of her adventure to the Braggs, but told of her father’s plan for morning lessons. “Mollie may come every day, may she not?” she pleaded; “and Mother wants her to stay for dinners.”   

     Mrs. Bragg’s anxious face had brightened as Berry spoke of lessons, and she answered quickly, “I reckon prayers are answered, fer I’ve been a hopin’ and a prayin’ there’d be some chance for Mollie to get book-larnin’, but no30 way seemed to open, and now your folks come along an’ want to teach her. Of course she can come, an’ mighty thankful fer the chanst,” and Mrs. Bragg wiped her faded eyes with the corner of her worn apron, and managed to smile at Mollie, who was jumping up and down as if too happy to keep still. Mr. Bragg had started off to look after the traps he set along the river banks for muskrats, whose skins he sold to a trader in Corinth, so there was no argument about the “foolishness of book-larnin’,” for Mr. Bragg often proudly announced that he “never had no schoolin’, an’ never was any the wus’ fer it,” without any idea that his poverty and laziness had been caused by his ignorance.   

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“School begins to-morrow,” Berry added, “at ten o’clock.”

     “What will we learn to-morrow?” Mollie asked eagerly, her pale blue eyes shining with delight.   

     

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