Through she got, with much squeezing and rending.  Tot eyed her torn pinafore, ruefully.

“I wis’ ’ittle dirl’s aprons wouldn’t teep tearing on every single fing.”

“’Pears to me,” doubtfully, putting one little foot down on the soft marshy ground, “it is wather wet.”

Rather wet?  Yes, Totchen, very wet.  Too wet for such little little feet as yours.  And see, little one, the sun is getting lower.  Crawl back through the fence and run home.  The sleepy murmuring river has nothing but trouble for you.

But Tot stumbled on over the marshy ground.

“I don’t ’ike to go down so far,” sighed Tot, drawing a little drenched boot up from a treacherous bog.  “And my new boots is detting all wet.”

But Tot had a Spartan soul; and at last, beside the wonderful stream, on the beautiful shore she stood, and—­poor, poor little Tot!  The little pinafore torn, the pretty, trim boots soaked and soiled, all Tot’s little body dragged and weary; yet, it isn’t that that makes me say “poor little Tot!” It is to see her standing there at the goal of her childish hopes with such happy, radiant eyes, and know how soon will come to her that “saddest pain of all—­to grasp the thing we long for and find how it can fail us.”

Up and down she walks, searching for sweetmeat pebbles and sugary stones, and when she finds none—­the water running high and close to the grassy ground—­she stoops and, dipping her little fingers, she lifts them, wet and dripping, to her longing lips.

“It isn’t vewy sweet,” she said.

Poor little Tot!  Down the stream she came to a ford, and the shallow water had left stones and pebbles bare.  Big and little, and half size; white and yellow, and brown and gray.

Here was richness at last.  All in a minute Tot’s little, nibbling, crunching teeth went on edge on a perverse, grating pebble that sternly refused to be nibbled or crunched.  Another and another and another she tried.

“Pwobably,” she thought, “they has to be cwacked dus ’ike nuts.”  And she proceeded to crack, not the stones, but her own little, eager, blundering fingers, instead.  O stony, stony-hearted stones and pebbly-hearted pebbles!  Tot’s cup of bitterness seemed to flow over.  She stood up, sobbing.  A sudden sense of desolation oppressed her.

“I wis’ I was at home wiv dwandma.  I wis,’ oh, I wis’ I hadn’t tum!” she sobbed.

Her only thought, now, was to get home.  But, first, what do you think she did?  She filled her bit of a pocket full of pebbles for grandmamma to crack; then the little weary feet stumbled back again over the weary way.

“My feet’s is detting so heavy,” she sighed, “and I fink I’s detting tired.”

Tot was crying piteously now, and no one heard.  All alone, mamma’s baby, who had never been alone before in all her short cherished life.  All alone with the croaking frogs and lonesome crickets.  Hark! what was that?  A roll of wheels and the clatter of a horse’s hoofs.