Now it made a grand step.

If you understood that no one could keep from running the last few rods from the tree, then figured on the help to be had from this step, you could see how we went up it like squirrels.

All the bark on the south side was worn away and the trunk was smooth and shiny.

The birds loved to nest among the branches, and under the peach tree in the fence corner opposite was a big bed of my mother's favourite wild flowers, blue-eyed Marys.

They had dainty stems from six to eight inches high and delicate heads of bloom made up of little flowers, two petals up, blue, two turning down, white.