there seemed to be something forbidden about them added a flavor that
nothing else could give.

Nellie had managed to crush a handful of the vinegar-like globules, when
she caught sight of another vine deeper in the woods. It was much larger
and climbed fully a dozen yards from the ground, winding in and out
among the limbs of a ridgy beech, which seemed to be forever struggling
upward to get away from the smothering embrace of the vegetable python.

Five minutes later, Nellie was clambering upward like a monkey, never
pausing until the bending tree-top warned her that if she went any
higher it would yield to her weight.

Nellie disposed of one bunch and that was enough: she concluded that she
was not very hungry for grapes and, without eating or even gathering
more, she devoted herself to another kind of enjoyment.

Standing with one foot on a limb and the other on one near it, she
grasped a branch above her and began swaying back and forth, with the
vim and abandon of a child in a patent swing.

The tree bent far over as she swung outward, then straightened up and
inclined the other way as her weight passed over to that side. Any one
looking at the picture would have said that a general smash and giving
away were certain, in which case the girl was sure to go spinning
through the limbs and branches, as though driven forth by the springs
within the big gun which fling the young lady outward just as the
showman touches off some powder.

But a green sapling is very elastic, and, although the one climbed by