Page:Dorothy Canfield - Understood Betsy.djvu/271

Rh went straight away from the house and the barn, straight up into the hill-pasture toward her favorite place beside the brook, the shady pool under the big maple-tree. At first she walked, but after a while she ran, faster and faster, as though she could not get there soon enough. Her head was down, and one arm was crooked over her face. . ..

And do you know, I'm not going to follow her up there, nor let you go. I'm afraid we would all cry if we saw what Betsy did under the big maple-tree. And the very reason she ran away so fast was so that she could be all by herself for a very hard hour, and fight it out, alone.

So let us go back soberly to the orchard where the Putneys are, and wait till Betsy comes walking listlessly in, her eyes red and her cheeks pale. Cousin Ann was up in the top of a tree, a basket hung over her shoulder half full of striped red Northern Spies; Uncle Henry was on a ladder against another tree, filling a bag with the beautiful, shining, yellow-green Pound Sweets, and Aunt Abigail was moving