I
generally gave it up before I had weeded half a bed. It made me
so warm! and my back did ache so! I stole off into the shade of
the great apple-trees, and let the west wind fan my hot cheeks,
and looked up into the boughs, and listened to the many, many
birds that seemed chattering to each other in a language of their
own. What was it they were saying? and why could not I understand
it? Perhaps I should, sometime. I had read of people who did, in
fairy tales.
When the others started homeward, I followed. I did not mind
their calling me lazy, nor that my father gave me only one
tarnished copper cent, while Lida received two or three bright
ones. I had had what I wanted most. I would rather sit under the
apple-trees and hear the birds sing than have a whole handful of
bright copper pennies. It was well for my father and his garden
that his other children were not like me.
The work which I was born to, but had not begun to do, was
sometimes a serious weight upon my small, forecasting brain.
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