"That would be too dreadful," thought she: "to lose it, now I've just found it." Then she recollected how, in the story of Hop o' My Thumb, it said that when he was carried off into the forest he slyly dropped beans all along the way, to mark the path, and thus found his way back, very easily by means of them. So she resolved to walk along in the bed of the stream, till it was time to climb up and strike off toward Lucinda's, and then to drop red stones all along the way she went, till she reached the beaten road. She took up the skirt of her gown in front, and filled it full with little red stones. Then she trudged along with as light a heart as ever any little girl had, scattering the stones along the way, like a farmer planting corn. When she reached the road, she was surprised to see that she had come out the other side of Lucinda's house, full quarter of a mile nearer home. "Now this isn't anywhere near where I left the road before," she said. "How'll I ever tell the place?" At first she thought she would put a bush up in the crotch of a little pine-tree that stood just there. "No, that won't do," she said: "the wind might blow it out." Then she thought she would stick the bush in the sand; but she feared some horse or cow might munch it and pull it up. At last she decided to break down a small bough of the pine-tree, and leave it hanging. "We can't make a mistake, then, possibly," she thought. When she reached the house, Lucinda had cleared the bedquilt all away, and had the table set for supper, though it was only half-past four o'clock. Nelly was not hungry. It seemed to her only a few minutes since she ate her lunch. "Did you find the place, Nelly?" said Lucinda. "Yes," said Nelly. "Was it as pretty as it was before?" Lucinda asked. "Oh, yes!" said Nelly; "but it was awful steep getting down to it. I kept tumbling down." "Well, you're the curiousest child ever was!" exclaimed Lucinda. "Anybody'd think you got walkin' enough in a week without trampin' off this way." Nelly did not reply. She felt a little guilty at letting Lucinda think it was only to find a pretty place she had gone; but she was sure it would not be best to tell anybody about the black stones till she had told her father. She had hid them all in a pile near the pine-tree whose branch she had broken down; and she meant to pick them up on her way home the next night. In the morning it looked to Nelly as if it never would be night, she was in such a hurry to see her father.