"When _is_ pwetty soon!" asked Tot, in hopeless tones.

One afternoon grandmamma gave Tot and Susie (that was the name of Tot's little playmate) each a fat hot jumble, and left them playing happily in the yard while she went back to her sewing. Susie was seven, so very safe company for little four-year-old Tot. After a while over ran Susie's brother, to summon her home to go with her mother to the village.

Tot stood at the gate, looking down the long road. St.u.r.dy maples threw curving, interlacing boughs across, through which the sun-light filtered and flickered. How cool and shady it was! Tot all at once felt the little sunny yard grow hot and stupid, and then Susie's mamma drove out of the gate and down the long shady arch over the sun-flecked road. Tot wished she was going to the village, too. Tot wished she was going to--to--Sugar River.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE WAY TO SUGAR RIVER.]

"Run in to grandmamma, little Tot," whispered the still small voice. But Tot never heeded. Tot was tired. Tot was hot. Tot was homesick. Tot would walk down the road just a few little steps. What harm? How delightful! How grateful the cool green shade! How alluring the long level stretch of road under the arching maples! Where did it lead? It led--O, Tot knew--it led to Sugar River.

Step by step, a little and a little further on the tiny white figure glanced. A sense of happy freedom possessed the little girl. A cloud of golden b.u.t.terflies beckoned on before. Here a dark thread of water crept down over the hills and splashed musically into the great stone trough.

All the way an invisible brooklet gurgled and kept her company. Only one bird seemed to sing at a time--first one, then another. Wasn't it charming? And at the end of it all must be--Tot could see it now in fancy--the fluttering blue ribbon uncurling between sunny sloping banks--SUGAR RIVER--fast asleep under the summer sun, on its glittering bed of rock candy. O, rapture! Tot's mouth watered for its sugary delights.

On and on and on, with the brook and the b.u.t.terflies and the welcoming bird. On, till the maples stopped and could go no further, and so she left them behind. Out into the open sun-light she came, and only the long, hot, and dazzling road stretched on before.

Tot's small feet trudged on, steadily. Just a little further on--Tot was sure--and then--But how long the road grew, how deep the dust lay, how tired the little feet were getting, little feet that can trudge about all day long in play, yet drag so wearily over long straight roads.

"I sood fink I would tum to Soogar Wiver pwetty soon," she sighed.

At last she came to where some cross-roads met, and looking down one she saw the cool green shade again. Not maples this time, but close and cl.u.s.tering shrubbery.

She left the brook gurgling "go-oo-oo-d-by," and the b.u.t.terflies waving adieu with their golden wings, and went on alone. How sweet and still it was here! The tall gra.s.s drooped over two brown beaten paths that horses feet had worn, and a tender green light lay over all. But where was the sweet river hiding? Another meeting of cross roads. Tot looked this way, that. Ah, there it was over the road! Over the meadow. Gleaming, gliding, Sugar River, at last.

"I fought I sood det to it pwetty soon," murmured Tot, triumphantly.

"Won't dwandma be glad to get some nice sugar plums? I wis I tood det froo dis fence."

Through she got, with much squeezing and rending. Tot eyed her torn pinafore, ruefully.

"I wis' 'ittle dirl's ap.r.o.ns wouldn't teep tearing on every single fing."

"'Pears to me," doubtfully, putting one little foot down on the soft marshy ground, "it is wather wet."

Rather wet? Yes, Totchen, very wet. Too wet for such little little feet as yours. And see, little one, the sun is getting lower. Crawl back through the fence and run home. The sleepy murmuring river has nothing but trouble for you.

But Tot stumbled on over the marshy ground.

"I don't 'ike to go down so far," sighed Tot, drawing a little drenched boot up from a treacherous bog. "And my new boots is detting all wet."

But Tot had a Spartan soul; and at last, beside the wonderful stream, on the beautiful sh.o.r.e she stood, and--poor, poor little Tot! The little pinafore torn, the pretty, trim boots soaked and soiled, all Tot's little body dragged and weary; yet, it isn't that that makes me say "poor little Tot!" It is to see her standing there at the goal of her childish hopes with such happy, radiant eyes, and know how soon will come to her that "saddest pain of all--to grasp the thing we long for and find how it can fail us."

Up and down she walks, searching for sweetmeat pebbles and sugary stones, and when she finds none--the water running high and close to the gra.s.sy ground--she stoops and, dipping her little fingers, she lifts them, wet and dripping, to her longing lips.

"It isn't _vewy_ sweet," she said.

Poor little Tot! Down the stream she came to a ford, and the shallow water had left stones and pebbles bare. Big and little, and half size; white and yellow, and brown and gray.

Here was richness at last. All in a minute Tot's little, nibbling, crunching teeth went on edge on a perverse, grating pebble that sternly refused to be nibbled or crunched. Another and another and another she tried.

"Pwobably," she thought, "they has to be cwacked dus 'ike nuts." And she proceeded to crack, not the stones, but her own little, eager, blundering fingers, instead. O stony, stony-hearted stones and pebbly-hearted pebbles! Tot's cup of bitterness seemed to flow over. She stood up, sobbing. A sudden sense of desolation oppressed her.

"I wis' I was at home wiv dwandma. I wis,' oh, I _wis'_ I hadn't tum!"

she sobbed.

Her only thought, now, was to get home. But, first, what do you think she did? She filled her bit of a pocket full of pebbles for grandmamma to crack; then the little weary feet stumbled back again over the weary way.

"My feet's is detting so heavy," she sighed, "and I _fink_ I's detting tired."

Tot was crying piteously now, and no one heard. All alone, mamma's baby, who had never been alone before in all her short cherished life. All alone with the croaking frogs and lonesome crickets. Hark! what was that? A roll of wheels and the clatter of a horse's hoofs.

"Whoa!" called out a boy's shrill voice. Down to the ground dropped the owner of the voice. "What is the matter, little girl?"

"I'se been to Soogar Wiver, and I don't know how to det home aden, I'se so vewy tired, and I toodn't cwack the candy, and I want to see dwandma," and Tot's words ended in a wail of inarticulate woe.

"Where do you live?" asked the boy.

"A dwate, dwate ways off," answered Tot.

"What is your name?"

"Tot Lindsay."

"Lindsay? O, I know! All you've got to do is to jump into this wagon and have a nice ride, and, presently, we'll be there."

And presently, in the gloaming, they stopped before grandpapa's house, and the boy, lifting out Tot in his arms, carried her to the door and bade her good-by, and, jumping into his wagon, rattled away. Empty and silent stood the little house, like the dwelling of the Three Talking Bears, and little Tot might have been Silver Hair herself.

"Dwandma, dwandma!" she called. But no grandmamma replied.

"Perhaps she has dus dorn out a minute," thought she. "I'll det up on dis lounge and tover dis shawl over me, and s'prise her when she tums back."

Something else besides the shawl covered Tot's eyes. Down over the blue orbs drifted the snowy lids. Tired little Tot.

Where was dwandma and the rest all this time? In trouble and confusion.

Calling and searching, searching and calling: "Tot, Tot, Tot, little Tot! Where are you?" Grandpapa and grandmamma, and Uncle Will and Tot's mamma.

At last, on the road running beside the river, they had found the fragment of dotted cambric, held fast by a detaining splinter; and then Tot's mamma had run ahead and led them across the meadow, right in the track of Tot's little feet, straight to the river. And then grandmamma had said, quaveringly, that Tot was always asking to go to Sugar River; and then Will's heart had given a great guilty throb, and sank way, way down. He knew so well _why_. And then Tot's mamma had thrown up her two hands, and darted towards a little string of coral beads and picked it up. And, as they stood there, the river's murmur seemed like the murmur of the river of death, and the white fog, beginning to rise, like the folds of a little child's shroud; and Tot's mamma threw up her hands again and fell among all the unfeeling stones and pebbles.

Will ran all the way home and went straight to the barn and harnessed the horse, and then went into the house and into the sitting-room and s.n.a.t.c.hed a shawl from the lounge, and--"Jerusalem Crickets!" was all he had breath enough left to say. Tot had surprised somebody, indeed.

Down by the river, in the dusk and the river damp, as they waited, came Will, striding along with what looked like a bundle of old shawls upon his shoulder; and presently, parting the folds like the calyx of a flower, Tot's rosy face blossomed out.

"Peekabo!" she said, with a sweet sound of laughter. "O mamma, mamma!"

It was wonderful how quickly mamma recovered; and it was more wonderful still how ever Tot escaped sudden death, then and there, from suffocation. But, bless you! You need not worry, it was larks to Tot.

What a triumphal procession home it was. Tot, in her little night-dress sat in her mother's lap, and told her adventures; and Will sat in the darkest corner and said not a word, but resolved that no story more fabulous than that of George Washington and his hatchet should ever again pa.s.s his lips. His lip quivered, as much as a boy's lip is ever allowed, when Tot said:

"And I brought home a whole pottet full to cwack."