"Luclarion doesn't know," said Frank. "People _don't_ know things, I
think. I wonder why, when they've got old, and ought to? It's like
the sea-shore here, I guess, only the stones are all stuck down, and
you mustn't pick up the loose ones either."

Frank touched lightly, as she spoke, the white and black and gray
bits of gravel that covered the flat roof.

"And it smells--like the pine forests!"

The sun was hot and bright upon the fir branches and along the
tar-cemented roof.

"How do you know about sea-shores and pine forests?" asked Laura,
with crushing common sense.

"I don't know; but I do," said Frank.

"You don't know anything but stories and pictures and one tree, and
a little gravel, all stuck down tight."

"I'm glad I've got one tree. And the rest of it,--why listen! It's
in the _word_, Laura. _Forest_. Doesn't that sound like thousands of
them, all fresh and rustling? And Ellen went to the sea-shore, in
that book; and picked up pebbles; and the sea came up to her feet,
just as the air comes up here, and you can't get any farther,"--said
Frank, walking to the very edge and putting one foot out over, while
the wind blew in her face up the long opening between rows of brick
houses of which theirs was in the midst upon one side.