They were the earliest of the season; the Old Lady had found
them in one of her secret haunts. They would have been
a toothsome addition to the Old Lady's own slender bill of fare;
but she never thought of eating them. She got far more pleasure
out of the thought of Sylvia's enjoying them for her tea.
Thereafter the strawberries alternated with the flowers as long
as they lasted, and then came blueberries and raspberries.
The blueberries grew far away and the Old Lady had many
a tramp after them. Sometimes her bones ached at night
because of it; but what cared the Old Lady for that?
Bone ache is easier to endure than soul ache; and the Old Lady's
soul had stopped aching for the first time in many year.
It was being nourished with heavenly manna.
One evening Crooked Jack came up to fix something that had gone wrong
with the Old Lady's well. The Old Lady wandered affably out to him;
for she knew he had been working at the Spencers' all day, and there
might be crumbs of information about Sylvia to be picked up.
"I reckon the music teacher's feeling pretty blue this evening,"
Crooked Jack remarked, after straining the Old Lady's patience to
the last verge of human endurance by expatiating on William Spencer's
new pump, and Mrs.
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