The worshippers must
come humbly on foot; and a wicket in front of the church led
out upon a path suited for such. Perhaps a public road might
be not far off, but at least here there was no promise of it.
In the edge of the thicket, at the side of the church, was the
girl whose appearance Daisy had hailed.
"I sha'n't wait for you," cried her brother, as she sprang
down.
"No — go — I don't want you," — and Daisy made few steps over
the greensward to the thicket. Then it was, "Oh, Nora! how do
you do? what are you doing?" — and "Oh, Daisy! I'm getting
wintergreens." Anybody who has ever been nine, or ten, or
eleven years old, and gone in the woods looking for
wintergreens, knows what followed. The eager plunging into the
thickest of the thicket; the happy search of every likely bank
or open ground in the shelter of some rock; the careless,
delicious straying from rock to rock, and whithersoever the
bank or the course of the thicket might lead them. The
wintergreens sweet under foot, sweet in the hands of the
children, the whole air full of sweetness. Naturally their
quest led them to the thicker and wilder grown part of the
wood; prettier there, they declared it to be, where the ground
became broken, and there were ups and downs, and rocky dells
and heights, and to turn a corner was to come upon something
new.
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