open, with a wild sort of little pasture before them, and beyond, in the clear afterlight, a long, sloping valley, rather bare and desolate, where the farmsteads had no great appearance of thrift or comfort.
“Why—where are we?” said Ilse blankly. “I don’t see anything like Wiltney.”
Emily came abruptly out of her dreams and tried to get her bearings. The only landmark visible was a tall spire on a hill ten miles away.
“Why, there’s the spire of the Catholic church at Indian Head,” she said flatly. “And that must be Hardscrabble Road down there. We must have taken a wrong turning somewhere, Ilse—we’ve come out on the east side of the woods instead of the north.”
“Then we're five miles from Wiltney,” said Ilse despairingly. “I can never walk that far—and we can’t go back through those woods—it will be pitch dark in a quarter of an hour. What on earth can we do?”
“Admit we’re lost and make a beautiful thing of it,” said Emily, coolly.
“Oh, we’re lost all right, to all intents and purposes,” moaned Ilse, climbing feebly up on the tumbledown fence and sitting there, “but I don’t see how we're going to make it beautiful. We can’t stay here all night. The only thing to do is to go down and see if they'll put us up at any of those houses. I don’t like the idea. If that’s Hardscrabble Road the people are all poor—and dirty. I’ve heard Aunt Net tell weird tales of Hardscrabble Road.”
“Why can’t we stay here all night?” said Emily.
Ilse looked at Emily to see if she meant it—saw that she did.
“Where can we sleep? Hang ourselves over this fence?”
“Over on that haystack,” said Emily. “It’s only half finished—Hardscrabble fashion. The top is flat—there’s a ladder leaning against it—the hay is dry and clean—the night is summer warm—there are no mosquitoes this
