He only gurgled a
little, by way of laugh. He thought Mirandy was playing with him.
The bars were close together, and Mirandy could not stir one. Jonathan
gurgled again when his sister rolled him, like a ball, under the lowest
bar, and then rolled under herself. But it was harder for her to tug
Jonathan across to the other bars which guarded Cap'n Moseby's berry
pasture; he could only toddle feebly when led by a strong hand. It was
quite a puzzle for six-year-old Mirandy, but she got him across and
under the other bars; then she set him down in a sweet-fern thicket, and
bade him keep still; and he fell asleep again.
Mirandy picked until she had filled her bucket and rounded it up. Her
heart beat faster and faster; her face was flushed and eager; she looked
a year older than when she started that morning. She had seen no great
black dog, and Cap'n Moseby, with his gun, had not appeared. In the
distance she could see the hipped roof and squat chimney of the Moseby
house; but nobody molested her.
When her bucket was full, she tugged Jonathan across the field again.
This time he rebelled; a blackberry vine had scratched his little legs,
and his peace was too rudely disturbed. Mirandy tugged him into his
little wagon, and he lay there kicking and screaming. She flew back
across the field for her bucket of berries. She had been forced to
leave it while she brought Jonathan over, and the bucket was gone.
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