The place was nearly two miles from the old
Squire's, and as the girls did not expect to get home until four
o'clock, they took their luncheon with them.
They hoped to get enough mitchella at the "open" to fill fifteen jars,
and so took two bushel baskets. Four or five inches of hard-frozen snow
was on the ground; but in the shelter of the young pine and fir thickets
that were now encroaching on the borders of the "open" the "cradle
knolls" were partly bare.
However, they found less mitchella at Dunham's open than they had hoped.
After going completely round the borders of the clearing they had
gathered only half a basketful. Kate then proposed that they should go
on to another opening at Adger's lumber camp, on a brook near the foot
of Stoss Pond. She had been there the winter before with Theodora, and
both of them remembered having seen mitchella growing there.
The old lumber road was not hard to follow, and they reached the camp in
a little less than an hour. They found several plats of mitchella, and
began industriously to gather the vine.
They had such a good time at their work that they almost forgot their
luncheon. When at last they opened the pasteboard box in which it was
packed, they found the sandwiches and the mince pie frozen hard.
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