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Show Page 138 I heard Margaret call out to Twig to bring in some firewood. It was near time to begin preparing for the evening meal, a hotchpotch of venison from a deer that had impaled itself upon a sharpened stake, set in the garden patch to catch four-legged pillagers that leaped the fence. The poor deer knew not there would be no peas in the garden for many weeks yet. At last, seeing the folly in my childish impulse to climb the tree, I started back down, regretting that a person's age sometimes governed her actions. I was becoming too old to climb trees, yet what fun it had been to sit at the top of the forest and spy upon the people of Wolstenholme Towne. I shall save the tree for special occasions, I told myself. I shall climb it only on my birthday. It would be my gift to myself. I gave the tree a pat as I left it. I would not sit among its branches again till next March 22, a whole year away. I did not know it then, but on that day, I would owe the tree my life. After supper I laid down the turkey feather with which I had swept clean the hearth and turned to Twig, who was scouring the kettle. "What say you to going with me to the Mills' this evening?" I asked him. "It is my birthday and I would like to visit with Anne a while. |
