Two little girls went shopping with their mamma. While she was at the end of the store, Julie, the youngest, ran to the door. Her mother was too busy to notice her, but Julie’s sister Mattie was watching her. She saw a tall woman pass the door, and snatch up little Julie. Without a word to her mother, Mattie ran after them.
Away they went down the street. The woman would soon have outrun Mattie, but her screams attracted the attention of a policeman. He followed too. They came up with the woman as she was darting into a cellar. Mattie told the policeman that the bad woman had stolen her sister Julie. He soon took both children home. Their mother was overjoyed to see them, and praised Mattie for being such a brave little girl. She never let Julie go out of her sight again, when she took her out on the street.
There was an old apple-tree in the orchard that was the oldest tree in the town. It overtopped the house, and the trunk was very big and brown and rough; but O, the millions of fine green leaves, as soft and smooth as silk, that it held up in the summer air!
In the spring it was gay with pink and white blossoms, and then for days the tree would be all alive with the great, black-belted bees. A little later those sweet blossoms would fall off in a rosy rain, and Myra and I would stand under the old apple-tree and try to catch the little, fluttering things in our apron! And then, later still, came little apples, very sour at first, but slowly sweetening until it seemed to me that those juicy, golden-green apples tasted the best of any fruit in all the world! My apron-pockets were always bursting with them!
There was a famous horse up in the old tree. It could only be reached by means of a ladder placed against the old tree’s stout trunk! A strange horse, you would call him, but O, the famous rides that I have had on that horse’s broad, brown back! The name of the horse was “General.”
Up among the leaves where the sunshine played hide-and-seek was one dear bough that was just broad enough and just crooked enough to form a nice seat. Another bough bent round just in the very place to form a most comfortable back to that seat. A pair of stirrups made of rope, some rope reins tied to the trunk of the tree, and there was my horse, “all saddled and all bridled!”