An enormous bowlder, high above her and firmly fixed in the spine of the hill, invited as a place where she could see without being seen, could hide securely until darkness came again.She climbed to the base of it, found that she might reach the top by stepping from ledge to ledge with the aid of the trees growing so close around it that some of their boughs seemed rooted in its weather-dented cliffs.She dragged herself upward the fifty or sixty feet, glad of the difficulties because they would make any pursuer feel certain she had not gone that way.After perhaps an hour she came upon a flat surface where soil had formed, where grass and wild flowers and several little trees gave shade and a place to sleep.And from her eyrie she commanded a vast sweep of country--hills and valleys, fields, creeks, here and there lonely farmhouses, and far away to the east the glint of the river!
To the river! That was her destination.And somehow it would be kind, would take her where she would never, never dream those frightful dreams again!
She went to the side of the bowlder opposite that which she had climbed.She drew back hastily, ready to cry with vexation.It was not nearly so high or so steep; and on the slope of the hill a short distance away was set a little farmhouse, with smoke curling up from its rough stone chimney.She dropped to all fours in the tall grass and moved cautiously toward the edge.
Flat upon her breast, she worked her way to the edge and looked down.A faintly lined path led from the house through a gate in a zigzag fence and up to the base of her fortress.The rock had so crumbled on that side that a sort of path extended clear up to the top.But her alarm quieted somewhat when she noted how the path was grass-grown.
As nearly as she could judge it was about five o'clock.So that smoke meant breakfast! Her eyes fixed hungrily upon the thin column of violet vapor mounting straight into the still morning air.When smoke rose in that fashion, she remembered, it was sure sign of clear weather.And then the thought came, "What if it had been raining!" She simply could not have got away.
As she interestedly watched the little house and its yard she saw hurrying through the burdock and dog fennel toward the base of her rock a determined looking hen.Susan laughed silently, it was so obvious that the hen was on a pressing and secret business errand.But almost immediately her attention was distracted to observing the movements of a human being she could obscurely make out through one of the windows just back of the chimney.Soon she saw that it was a woman, cleaning up a kitchen after breakfast--the early breakfast of the farmhouse in summer.
What had they had for breakfast? She sniffed the air."I think I can smell ham and cornbread," she said aloud, and laughed, partly at the absurdity of her fancy, chiefly at the idea of such attractive food.She aggravated her hunger by letting her imagination loose upon the glorious possibilities.A stealthy fluttering brought her glance back to the point where the hen had disappeared.The hen reappeared, hastened down the path and through the weeds, and rejoined the flock in the yard with an air which seemed to say, "No, indeed, I've been right here all the time.""Now, what was she up to?" wondered Susan, and the answer came to her.Eggs! A nest hidden somewhere near or in the base of the rock!
Could she get down to that nest without being seen from the house or from any other part of the region below? She drew back from the edge, crawled through the grass to the place where the path, if path it could be called, reached the top.She was delighted to find that it made the ascent through a wide cleft and not along the outside.She let herself down cautiously as the footway was crumbling and rotten and slippery with grass.At the lower end of the cleft she peered out.Trees and bushes--plenty of them, a thick shield between her and the valleys.She moved slowly downward; a misstep might send her through the boughs to the hillside forty feet below.She had gone up and down several times before her hunger-sharpened eyes caught the gleam of white through the ferns growing thickly out of the moist mossy cracks which everywhere seamed the wall.She pushed the ferns aside.There was the nest, the length of her forearm into the dim seclusion of a deep hole.She felt round, found the egg that was warm.And as she drew it out she laughed softly and said half aloud: "Breakfast is ready!"No, not quite ready.Hooking one arm round the bough of a tree that shot up from the hillside to the height of the rock and beyond, she pressed her foot firmly against the protecting root of an ancient vine of poison ivy.Thus ensconced, she had free hands; and she proceeded to remove the thin shell of the egg piece by piece.She had difficulty in restraining herself until the end.At last she put the whole egg into her mouth.And never had she tasted anything so good.
But one egg was only an appetizer.She reached in again.She did not wish to despoil the meritorious hen unnecessarily, so she held the egg up in her inclosing fingers and looked through it, as she had often seen the cook do at home.She was not sure, but the inside seemed muddy.She laid it to one side, tried another.
