“Molly will teach you. Go on, get your cloak and bonnet and we shall go exploring,” Agnes said even as she hurried away to get her own garments.
Clover wrote a note to say where she and her mother had gone. She propped it up against the cooling bread, knowing that fresh bread would quickly draw at least one member of the family, or Molly would see the note when she brought the new supplies into the kitchen. Even as Clover draped her light summer cape over her shoulders and tied on her simple bonnet, she wondered if she needed to wear so much. It was a very warm day and the air was growing heavy. Then she shrugged. Her mother would insist that she be properly dressed even if they were just going into the woods.
“I have brought a little basket in case we find anything that might be useful,” Agnes said as she headed outside.
“Perhaps we ought to wait and take one of the men with us,” suggested Clover, hurrying after her mother.
“Nonsense, dear. Ballard allows the boys to roam his lands freely with no more than a caution. Why should we be treated any differently? We will just walk straight ahead and search that particular section of the forest first,” Agnes said as she stepped off the veranda. “We can explore another part on some other day.”
“It might be a good idea not to wander too far afield,” Clover said as they entered the woods. “Wecould get lost, and Ballard seemed to think that the weather is going to turn today.”
“Well, it does not look stormy,” Agnes murmured as she glanced briefly at the sky.
“I do not think so either, but I assume Ballard knows about such things.”
“At the first sign of a dark cloud we will head back. As for getting lost, I have brought some scraps of twine. We will tie a little on the branches of the trees along the path we take.”
“This little stroll is not a recent idea, is it?” Clover murmured and smiled at her mother’s brief, guilty look.
“Well, no, I have been thinking about it for a while, but I did not want to go alone.”
“And I have been very busy.”
Clover set her mind to helping her mother search for plants. It was a little difficult to put aside all her uneasiness about being in the forest. This was no small patch of wood such as she and her mother had meandered through in Pennsylvania. There were no farms within easy walking distance in any direction. She was also a little nervous about what else might be roaming about. She tensed at every rustle of the leaves or snap of a twig and was a bit envious of her mother’s blissful ignorance of the trouble into which they might stumble.
When they discovered a patch of blackberry bushes, Clover lost some of her wariness and became more engrossed in the search. She and her mother exchanged only a few soft words on what they hoped to find and occasionally tried to figure out what something was. It was as if the forest itself urged them to be quiet.
A dramatic increase in the wind finally drew Cloverout of her absorption. Grabbing hold of her bonnet before it was whisked off her head, she frowned up at the sky. The clouds spinning into view were ominously dark. She nudged her mother, who was intently studying a clump of moss, and pointed at the sky.
“That one dark cloud is bringing its whole family with it,” Clover said.
“It certainly does look stormy now. We had better hurry back then.”
As she nodded her agreement, Clover turned to start toward home and gasped. Meandering down the path they intended to take was a huge bear. She frantically tried to think of what to do next, but before a plan formed in her mind, the bear saw her and her mother. It slowly stood up on its hind legs and its loud, deep growl caused them to cry out in fright. Agnes grabbed her hand and they started to run. Clover cursed when she heard the bear thundering after them.
“I am not sure this is what we should be doing,” Clover yelled as she kept pace with her mother.
“What would you do? Stop and have a chat with the beast? Somehow I do not believe he can be reasoned with.”
Clover looked over her shoulder and cursed again. “I think he is gaining on us.”
“I cannot run any faster.”
Clover could tell from the way her mother was panting that she could not go much farther. Since they were running in blind panic, weaving among the trees and constantly changing direction to follow the easiest path, in the vain hope of eluding the bear, they were getting hopelessly lost. Their best hope was to find a safe spot out of the bear’s reach.Just ahead she saw a thick-trunked, twisted old tree that should prove easy to climb even for them.
“Mama, go up that tree just ahead of us,” she yelled.
“Climb a tree? I cannot climb a tree.”
“Can you keep running fast enough to tire out or lose that bear?”
“No, but cannot bears climb trees?”
“I have no idea, but his size should prevent him from climbing as high as we can. Get up there, Mama.”
Her mother scrambled up onto the lowest branch and Clover quickly followed. She urged her mother to continue on up. The bear stopped a yard or so away, then ambled up to the base of the tree. It stood up and fell against the trunk, shaking the tree so powerfully that Clover and her mother had to hang on to keep from falling. When it stretched one huge paw toward her, Clover knew that they had to go higher still. She pushed her mother up another branch and was just following when the bear took a swipe at her. Clover screeched as its claws tore through her skirts. She hastily finished her climb.
She and her mother clung to the branch and looked down at the bear, trying to catch their breath. It stared up at them for a long moment. It tried climbing and Clover and her mother quickly scrambled up just a little higher. The bear was too heavy and the tree too old. The first branch on which it put its considerable weight broke, sending it tumbling to the ground. It satisfied itself by banging up against the tree as if to shake them loose like ripe fruit, and Clover joined her mother in hanging on for dear life.
