Part One - A Little Girl and Her Mother

An Afternoon in the Life of Elly Crittenden, aet. 8 Years April 6.

Elly Crittenden had meant to go straight home from school as usual with
the other children, Paul and Mark, and Addle and Ralph Powers. And as
usual somehow she was ever so far behind them, so far that there wasn't
any use trying to catch up. Paul was hurrying to go over and see that
new old man next door, as usual. She might as well not try, and just
give up, and get home ever so late, the way she always did. Oh well,
Father wasn't at home, and Mother wouldn't scold, and it was nice to
walk along just as slow as you wanted to, and feel your rubber boots
squizzle into the mud. How good it did seem to have real mud, after
the long winter of snow! And it was nice to hear the brooks everywhere,
making that dear little noise and to see them flashing every-which-way
in the sun, as they tumbled along downhill. And it was nice to smell
that smell . . . what was that sort of smell that made you know the
sugaring-off had begun? You couldn't smell the hot boiling sap all the
way from the mountain-sides, but what you did smell made you think of
the little bark-covered sap-houses up in the far woods, with smoke and
white steam coming out from all their cracks, as though there was
somebody inside magicking charms and making a great cloud to cover it,
like Klingsor or the witch-ladies in the Arabian Nights. There was a
piece of music Mother played, that was like that. You could almost see
the white clouds begin to come streeling out between the piano-keys, and
drift all around her. All but her face that always looked through.