I wouldn't dare get over to the house for a luncheon; we'll have to
get along with sweet-boughs."
She slipped the book into one pannier, a cushion into the other
and threw a worn steamer rug over the little beast's back;
Caroline was a luxurious lounger and rarely traveled without
her sumpter mule and his impedimenta. She led him with practiced
quiet away from the house and paused under the gnarled old
sweet-bough tree: the greenish-yellow, almost translucent globes
dotted the lush, warm grass, their languorous sweet filled the
air. Selecting a dozen thoughtfully, she added them to the
donkey's load, and they went on at a foot pace, through the
slowly reddening Baldwins and seek-no-furthers, the tiny
lady-apples and the king-of-Tompkins-counties, through the
belt of dead, warped fruit trees, blighted and gray--"like
those Dore pictures," she murmured to Rose-Marie--down three,
crumbling brick steps, where the little fellow picked his way
as daintily as a careful lady, and across the dusty road into
a pasture trail that led to a wood stretch, sparse at first,
thicker as one plunged in deeper. The sun filtered through in
delicious diamonds; here and there a resinous pine, steeped in
heat, threw out a cloud of balmy odor; a chipmunk scuttered
across their path, clicking nervously, only to squat on his
haunches and stare beadily at Rose-Marie, taut with quivering
curiosity.
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