AFTER the sugar snow had gone, spring came. Birds sang in the leafing hazel bushes along the crooked rail fehe grass grew green again and the woods were full of wild flowers. Buttercups and violets, thimble flowers and tiny starry grassflowers were everywhere.
As soon as the days were warm, Laura and Mary begged to be allowed to run barefoot. At first they might only run out around the woodpile and back, in their bare feet. day they could run farther, and soon their shoes were oiled and put away and they ran barefoot all day long.
Every night they had to wash their feet before they, went to bed. Uhe hems of their skirts their ankles and their feet were as brown as their faces.
They had playhouses uhe two big oak trees in front of the house. Marys playhouse was under Marys tree, and Lauras playhouse was under Lauras tree. The soft grass made a green carpet for or them. The green leaves were the roofs, and through them they could see bits of the blue sky.
Pa made a swing of tough bark and hung it to a large, low branch of Lauras tree. It was her swing because it was iree, but she had to be unselfish a Mary swing in it whenever she wao.
Mary had a cracked saucer to play with, and Laura had a beautiful cup with only one big piece broken out of it. Charlotte aie, and the two little wooden men Pa had made, lived in the playhouse with them. Every day they made fresh leaf hats for Charlotte aie, and they made little leaf cups and saucers to set oable. The table was a nice, smooth rock.
Sukey and Rosie, the cows, were turned loose in the woods now, to eat the wild grass and the juiew leaves. There were two little calves in the barnyard, and seven little pigs with the m in the pigpen.
In the clearing he had made last year, Pa lowing around the stumps and putting in his crops. One night he came in from work and said to Laura:
"What do you think I saw today?」
She couldnt guess.
"Well," Pa said. "When was w in the clearing this m, I looked up, and there at the edge of the woods stood a deer. She was a doe, a mother deer and youll never guess what was with her" "A baby deer!" Laura and Mary guessed together, clasping their hands.
"Yes," Pa said, "her faith her. It retty little thing, the softest fawn color, with big dark eyes. It had the ti feet, not much bigger than my thumb, and it had slender little legs, and the softest muzzle.
"It stood there and looked at me with its large, soft eyes, w what I was. It was not afraid at all.」
"You wouldnt shoot a little baby deer, would you, Pa?" Laura said.
"No, never!" he answered. "Nor its Ma, nor its Pa. No more hunting, now, till all the little wild animals have grown up. Well just have to do without fresh meat till fall.」
Pa said that as soon as he had the crops in, they would all go to town. Laura and Mary could go, too. They were old enough now.
They were very much excited, a day they tried to play going to town. They could not do it very well, because they were not quite sure what a town was like. They khere was a store in town, but they had never seen a store.
Nearly every day after that, Charlotte ale would ask if they could go to town. But Laura and Mary always said: "No, dear, you t go this year. Perhaps year, if yood, then you go.」
Then one night Pa said, "Well go to town tomorrow.
That night, though it was the middle of the week, Ma bathed Laura and Mary all over, and she put u