And as she tried to follow herself back
into the cloudy days of her earliest spring, she rose without knowing
why, and went down the pastures toward the river. She passed the old
English apple-tree, which still held aloft a flourishing bough. Its
fruit had been gathered, but there were one or two stray apples left,
and Nan skillfully threw a stick at these by way of summons.
Along this path she had hurried or faltered many a time. She
remembered her grandmother's funeral, and how she had walked, with an
elderly cousin whom she did not know, at the head of the procession,
and had seen Martin Dyer's small grandson peeping like a rabbit from
among the underbrush near the shore. Poor little Nan! she was very
lonely that day. She had been so glad when the doctor had wrapped her
up and taken her home.
She saw the neighborly old hawthorn-tree that grew by a cellar, and
stopped to listen to its rustling and to lay her hand upon the rough
bark. It had been a cause of wonder once, for she knew no other tree
of the kind. It was like a snow-drift when it was in bloom, and in the
grass-grown cellar she had spent many an hour, for there was a good
shelter from the wind and an excellent hiding-place, though it seemed
very shallow now when she looked at it as she went by.
The burying-place was shut in by a plain stone wall, which she had
long ago asked the Dyers to build for her, and she leaned over it now
and looked at the smooth turf of the low graves.
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