Tot stood at the gate, looking down the long road.  Sturdy maples threw curving, interlacing boughs across, through which the sun-light filtered and flickered.  How cool and shady it was!  Tot all at once felt the little sunny yard grow hot and stupid, and then Susie’s mamma drove out of the gate and down the long shady arch over the sun-flecked road.  Tot wished she was going to the village, too.  Tot wished she was going to—­to—­Sugar River.

[Illustration:  ON THE WAY TO SUGAR RIVER.]

“Run in to grandmamma, little Tot,” whispered the still small voice.  But Tot never heeded.  Tot was tired.  Tot was hot.  Tot was homesick.  Tot would walk down the road just a few little steps.  What harm?  How delightful!  How grateful the cool green shade!  How alluring the long level stretch of road under the arching maples!  Where did it lead?  It led—­O, Tot knew—­it led to Sugar River.

Step by step, a little and a little further on the tiny white figure glanced.  A sense of happy freedom possessed the little girl.  A cloud of golden butterflies beckoned on before.  Here a dark thread of water crept down over the hills and splashed musically into the great stone trough.  All the way an invisible brooklet gurgled and kept her company.  Only one bird seemed to sing at a time—­first one, then another.  Wasn’t it charming?  And at the end of it all must be—­Tot could see it now in fancy—­the fluttering blue ribbon uncurling between sunny sloping banks—­SUGAR RIVER—­fast asleep under the summer sun, on its glittering bed of rock candy.  O, rapture!  Tot’s mouth watered for its sugary delights.

On and on and on, with the brook and the butterflies and the welcoming bird.  On, till the maples stopped and could go no further, and so she left them behind.  Out into the open sun-light she came, and only the long, hot, and dazzling road stretched on before.

Tot’s small feet trudged on, steadily.  Just a little further on—­Tot was sure—­and then—­But how long the road grew, how deep the dust lay, how tired the little feet were getting, little feet that can trudge about all day long in play, yet drag so wearily over long straight roads.

“I sood fink I would tum to Soogar Wiver pwetty soon,” she sighed.

At last she came to where some cross-roads met, and looking down one she saw the cool green shade again.  Not maples this time, but close and clustering shrubbery.

She left the brook gurgling “go-oo-oo-d-by,” and the butterflies waving adieu with their golden wings, and went on alone.  How sweet and still it was here!  The tall grass drooped over two brown beaten paths that horses feet had worn, and a tender green light lay over all.  But where was the sweet river hiding?  Another meeting of cross roads.  Tot looked this way, that.  Ah, there it was over the road!  Over the meadow.  Gleaming, gliding, Sugar River, at last.

“I fought I sood det to it pwetty soon,” murmured Tot, triumphantly.  “Won’t dwandma be glad to get some nice sugar plums?  I wis I tood det froo dis fence.”