But she didn’t jump. It would have been taking a mean advantage of the mountain, she thought. She would just fly up the side of it, much as she was flying along the road now. And when she had gotten to the very topmost part, she would not deign to look down upon all the silly people in the valley--the people who just went on working, and didn’t have the sense to shout with joy because the sun was shining. She would reach up her hand, and feel the little fleecy cloud that was sitting so still and quiet, way up there. She would squash it between her fingers to see if it was wet or dry. And if it was dry, she would wrap it around her, to keep it warm forever, and would spend the rest of her days trying to catch, in a rose-colored bottle, the cold wind that went rushing past. And so the little girl ran and ran. The wind whistled at her speed. The dewy grass kissed her feet, and the cows in the meadows yawned as she passed. * * * * * Then she stumbled. A round smooth rock had rolled across her path: a granite rock, with specks that twinkled like bad men’s eyes. It was an orthodox rock--the sort that rarely rolled from its ledge. It growled: “Look at this astounding young person’s behavior on a Sunday! The idea! A gentleman and a preacher should put an end to such goings-on.” And so the smooth stone rolled in her path-way, and she stumbled and fell over it. A discreet silence had settled over the countryside, just as though all the fields were on their best behavior. The rows and rows of conscientiously trained beets and onions drew themselves up in the pride of their posture. They too are very orthodox. They look down upon those of their vegetable brethren who have allowed themselves to be blown away from the straight and narrow path while still in the seed stage. It is fair, in a kingdom of stones, that these should do penance by eternal excommunication from the pale. And thus pondering, in pious disgust, the beets and carrots were spending their Sunday. The truant asparagus, long since reformed from rigid rows, was glorifying heaven in its own sweet way. It sprawled over the edge of its patch, as though to cover as much of the earth as possible--to be as near to her as possible. It does her honor, by dressing up in feathery finery to adorn her. It even catches the dew-drops, and roguishly uses them as pearls; for it makes its religion a perpetual pageant to glorify nature, and it scorns the priggish severity of the onion elders who have carefully stored up all their dew, for the cultivation of orthopedic roots. These were the extremes of the vegetable Sunday behavior, and they are interspersed with just such in between stages as the meadows show,--a sort of tired business man-ish relief from the droning haying machines, and the hard cobble-stone wall. Over the vegetable kingdom the round stones rule in their smooth sly fashion, appearing in the furrows to retard the busy harrower in his task, and censoring the human children’s play.