Then I slipped around the house softly.

I didn't want to run any one's errands that morning.

I laid the pie on the horseblock and climbed the catalpa carefully, so as not to frighten my robins.

They were part father's too, because robins were his favourite birds; he said their song through and after rain was the sweetest music on earth, and mostly he was right; so they were not all my robins, but they were most mine after him; and I owned the tree.
I hunted the biggest leaf I could see, and wiped it clean on my apron, although it was early for much dust.

It covered the pie nicely, because it was the proper shape, and I held the stem with one hand to keep it in place.
If I had made that morning myself I couldn't have done better.