approached the cleared space, which some called the "Indian clearing,"
but is now more generally known as the little Beaver Meadow. It was a
pleasant spot, green, and surrounded with light bowery trees and
flowering shrubs, of a different growth from those that belong to the
dense forest. Here the children found, on the hilly ground above, fine
ripe strawberries, the earliest they had seen that year, and soon all
weariness was forgotten while pursuing the delightful occupation of
gathering the tempting fruit; and when they had refreshed themselves,
and filled the basket with leaves and fruit, they slaked their thirst
at the stream which wound its way among the bushes. Catharine
neglected not to reach down flowery bunches of the fragrant
whitethorn, and the high-bush cranberry, then radiant with nodding
umbels of snowy blossoms, or to wreathe the handle of the little
basket with the graceful trailing runners of the lovely twin-flowered
plant, the Linnaea borealis, which she always said reminded her of the
twins Louise and Marie, her little cousins. And now the day began to
wear away, for they had lingered long in the little clearing; they had
wandered from the path by which they entered it, and had neglected, in
their eagerness to look for the strawberries, to notice any particular
mark by which they might regain it. Just when they began to think of
returning, Louis noticed a beaten path, where there seemed recent
prints of cattle hoofs on a soft spongy soil beyond the creek.

"Come, Hector," said he gaily, "this is lucky; we are on the
cattle-path; no fear but it will lead us directly home, and that by a
nearer track."

Hector was undecided about following it; he fancied it bent too much
towards the setting sun; but his cousin overruled his objection. "And
is not this our own creek?" he said. "I have often heard my father say