"Kingsley, Florence Morse - At the End Of His Rope" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kingsley Florence Morse)

antics of a pair of squirrels which were frisking in primal gladness from bough
to bough of the big pine. Her eyes followed them with a certain distinct
satisfaction in the lawless freedom of these creatures of the wilderness, whose
ancestors cast no chilling shadow upon the joyous present.
At this point in the course of her aimless meditations her vagrant fancy was
again arrested by the big spool dangling by a scarlet thread from the branch
just above her head. As she gazed at this simple object, Miss Terrill completely
forgot her position in society and the august character of her lineage. After
full five minutes of reflection, which— as subsequent events proved— might have
been spent to better advantage, the descendant of the Brayton Carters
deliberately stood up on her chair and detached the big spool from its position.

"This is a cobweb party," she said solemnly; "the scientific old professor and
his box of bugs is the prize." With that, this "model of all the proprieties"
began to walk away into the woods, winding up the scarlet cord as she went.
From fragrant, low-dropping balsam to white-limbed birch; from sunny knoll,
crowded with purple-fruited huckleberries, to solemn stretches of forest, where
the winds loitered in the odorous branches of the pines, whispering strange,
ancient secrets of earth and sky; through trackless wastes of sweet fern, where
the gnats bit fiercely; through dense blackberry thickets, which clutched her
savagely in their thorny arms; over fallen logs, half rotted away and carpeted
deep with softest emerald mosses; past swampy spots, where the trim boots sank
ankle deep in the black mud— deeper and deeper into the pathless wilderness led
the fine slender clew.
"It's simply barrels of fun!" sighed the bold adventurer, lapsing into the camp
vernacular, as she sank breathless on to a bank to rest, "but— I believe I'll go
back without my prize. It must be nearly dinner-time."
She reached out after a sprig of wintergreen, where gay scarlet berries
glimmered like live coals amid the overarching ferns, her brown cheeks dimpling
as she reflected upon the undoubted consternation of the water-lily hunters.
Then she sprang to her feet with an air of decision. "I must go back at once; we
ought not to have stopped at all."
She glanced down at the bulky form of the big brown spool, and the full extent
of her folly dawned suddenly upon her. "How can I go back? I've wound up the
cord!"
It was characteristic of this young person that, preliminarily to a careful
consideration of the question, she sank down and laughed— till she cried; this
to the great astonishment and dismay of divers small woodsfolk, who paused in
the business of the hour to observe the new and peculiar animal which produced
such strange noises.
"I have come a mile," she reflected, sitting up and wiping her eyes; "for this
spool is full, and number two hangs in the bushes yonder."
The idea of surprising an elderly student of science at his labors had been
gradually growing less and less attractive; and now after a period of serious
reflection it ceased to appear either funny or fascinating in the slightest
degree.
"He is undoubtedly a person who would be politely, sarcastically, and crushingly
disagreeable because I had ventured to meddle with his absurd spools," decided
Miss Terrill soberly. "I am very glad that I stopped in time; I shall have no
trouble in reaching the camp from this point. Of course I shall put the spool