Although Nellie Ribsam was only eight years old at the time she was lost in the big woods, yet the results of the training received from her sensible father and mother showed themselves in a marked degree on that memorable occasion.

She had been taught, as was her brother, that under heaven she must rely upon herself to get forward in the world. Nick was rarely if ever allowed to extend her a helping hand in her lessons, and she was given to understand that whatever was possible for her to do must be done without the aid of any one.

As for sitting down and crying when in trouble, without making any effort to help herself, she knew better than to try that when either her father or mother were likely to find it out.

Her intention, when she left school that afternoon before the session closed, was to keep on in the direction of Dunbarton until she met Nick returning.

She turned off at the forks, and did not lessen her gait until she reached the woods. Her rapid walking caused her to feel quite warm, and the cool shade of the woods was refreshing.

She began wandering aimlessly forward, swinging her hat in her hand, singing snatches of school songs, and feeling just as happy as a little girl can feel who is in bounding health, high spirits, and without an accusing conscience.

It was not the time of year for flowers, and Nellie knew better than to look for any. They had drooped and died long ago; but some of the leaves were turning on the trees, and they gave a peculiar beauty to the autumnal forest.

At intervals she caught sight of the cleanly, symmetrical maple, with some of its leaves turning a fiery red and looking like flecks of flame through the intervening vegetation. At the least rustling of the wind some of the leaves came fluttering downward as lightly as flakes of snow; the little brown squirrel scampered up the shaggy trunks and out upon the limbs, where, perching on his hind legs, he peeped mischievously down at the girl, as if inviting her to play hide-and-seek with him; now and then a rabbit, fat and awkward from his gluttony on the richness around him, jumped softly a few steps, then munched rapidly with his jaws, flapped his long silken ears, looked slyly around with his big, pretty eyes, and, as the girl made a rush toward him, he was off like a shot.

The woods were fragrant with ripening grapes and decaying vegetation, and were putting on a garb whose flaming splendor surpassed the hues of spring.

Indeed, everything conspired to win a boy or girl away from study or work, and to cause the wish on the part of both that they might be a bird or squirrel, with no thought of the responsibilities of life.

Nellie Ribsam forgot for the time everything else except her own enjoyment; but by-and-by the woods took on such tempting looks that she turned off from the highway she had been following, with the intention of taking a stroll, which she meant should not lead her out of sight of the road.

The first view which stopped her was that of a large vine of wild grapes.

Some of them were green, some turning, while others were a dark purple, showing they were fully ripe: the last, as a matter of course, were at the top.

These wild grapes were small and tart, inferior to those which grew in the yard of Nellie at home; but they seemed to be trying to hide in the woods, and they were hard to get, therefore they were more to be desired than the choicest Catawba, Isabella, or Concord.

The main vine, where it started from the ground, was as thick as a man's wrist, and it twisted and wound about an oak sapling as if it were a great African constrictor seeking to strangle the young tree. Other vines branched out from the sides until not only was the particular sapling enfolded and smothered, but the greedy vine reached out and grasped others growing near it.

Nellie felt like the fox who found the grapes more tempting the longer he looked at them.

"I'm going to have some of them," she said, and straightway proceeded to help herself.

She climbed as readily as Nick himself could have done, and never stopped until she was so high that the sapling bent far over with her weight. Then she reached out her chubby hand and plucked a cluster of the wild fruit. They were about the size of buckshot, and when her sound teeth shut down on them, the juice was so sour that she shut both eyes and felt a twinge at the crown of her head as though she had taken a sniff of the spirits of ammonia.

But the grapes were none the less delicious for all that; the fact that there seemed to be someth............