THE BLUEBERRY PARTY. 145

—

 

Occurrences on the mountain. The party descend. The party of boys.

 

with the children. He was induced to do this partly by
his sense of propriety and his judgment in respect to what
was fitting at such times, and partly by his inclination ; for
he had a strong desire to become better acquainted with
Ellen Linn. But Caroline seemed not to approve of this
course of proceeding. She had a great many excuses and
pretexts for bringing Livingston back to her whenever he
strayed away from where she herself was employed.
Sometimes she called him to see the prospect which was
presented from the place where she was standing, some-
times to climb up upon some rocks to get her a flower
which she saw growing there, and sometimes she wanted
him to carry her measure of berries to the great basket,
when she had filled her measure full.

Things went on pretty much in this manner all the
day. At noon the party assembled on a flat rock under
the shade of some trees and ate their dinner. After
dinner they spent about an hour in gathering berries
again. By this time the baskets and pails were generally
full, and Mr. Clarendon said that it was time for them to
set out on their return. So they assembled again at
their depot, took up their baskets and pails——which were
all now heavily laden,—and forming a procession as be-
fore, they began slowly to descend the mountain.

When they had come about half-way down the moun-
tain, the party overtook two boys who had been gathering
blueberries to sell. These boys had gone up very early,
and had been very industriously at work all day, and so
they were very heavily laden. They stopped at the side
of the path to rest, and to let the long company of
strangers go by. Caroline and Livingston were behind,
as it happened, at the time ; and when they came up to

L