For oh, those woods! What a world of fairyland, what a world of pure, untold joy was there to Dolly! When she found her face fairly set towards them, with leave to stay till sundown, and with Spring at her heels, Dolly was as blissful, as perfectly happy, as a child can ever be made by any one thing. The sense of perfect freedom, the wonder, the curiosity, the vague expectation of what she might find or see, made her heart beat with pleasure. First came the race down through the tall, swaying meadow-grass and white-hatted daisies to the Poganuc River--a brown, clear, gurgling stream, wide, shallow, and garrulous, that might be easily crossed on mossy stepping-stones. Here was a world of delight to Dolly. Skipping from stone to stone, or reclining athwart some great rock around which the brown waters rippled, she watched the little fishes come and go, darting hither and thither like flecks of silver. Down under the shade of dark hemlocks the river had worn a deep pool where the translucent water lay dark and still; and Dolly, climbing carefully and quietly to the rocky side, could lean over and watch the slim, straight pickerel, holding themselves so still in the water that the play of their gossamer fins made no ripple,--so still, so apparently unwatchful and drowsy, that Dolly again and again fancied she might slily reach down her little hand and take one out of the water; but the moment the rosy finger-tips touched the wave, with a flash, like a ray of light, the coveted prize was gone. There was no catching a pickerel asleep, however quiet he might appear. Yet, time after time, Dolly tried the experiment, burning with the desire to win glory among the boys by bringing home an actual and veritable pickerel of her own catching. But there were other beauties, dryad treasures, more accessible. The woods along the moist margin of the river were full of the pink and white azalea, and she gathered besides the fragrant blossoms stores of what were called "honeysuckle apples" that grew upon them--fleshy exudations not particularly nice in flavor, but crisp, cool, and much valued among children. There, too, were crimson wintergreen berries, spicy in their sweetness, and the young, tender leaves of the wintergreen, ranking high as an eatable dainty among little folk. Dolly's basket was sure to fill rapidly when she set herself to gathering these treasures, and the sun would be almost down before she could leave the enchanted shades of the wood and come back to real life again. But Saturday afternoon was a sort of child's Paradise. No school was kept, and even household disciplinarians recognized a reasonably well-behaved child's right to a Saturday afternoon play-spell.