Mary Caldwell Laurens

“ The noisy blue jays were discordantly crying in the trees, and the busy woodpeckers industriously hammering, while from lime to time a gorgeous redbird would fly by, and all the birds seemed inspired by the splendor of the morning to sing their sweetest. ”

“ You children who travel so frequently these days, in which trains run everywhere at all times, cannot appreciate the keen delight of a boy or girl forty years ago, whose trips from home were red-letter days.
The next morning found Sarah up for an early start. It was late spring and the day a glorious one. The drive lay over the “State Pike,” and led past grassy fields and woods full of great beech and oak trees, whose tender green leaves were peeping forth. The country is so exquisitely rolling that often at the top of a gently sloping but high hill a great panoramaof beauty lay before them. ”

“ The drive was one full of danger, Sarah knew, for the guerrillas, a desperate band of plunderers and highwaymen, who did so much harm during the war, were constantly waylaying travelers, robbing banks, and raiding the little towns. So when her father proposed the drive her feelings were a mixture of surprise, doubt, and delight. Our. little heroine was always ready for adventure ”