Elnora set down the basket.
"Girls," she said, "I don't know what this is myself, so all of us are
going to be surprised. Here goes!"
She lifted the cover and perfumes from the land of spices rolled up. In
one end of the basket lay ten enormous sugar cakes the tops of which had
been liberally dotted with circles cut from stick candy. The candy had
melted in baking and made small transparent wells of waxy sweetness
and in the centre of each cake was a fat turtle made from a raisin with
cloves for head and feet. The remainder of the basket was filled with
big spiced pears that could be held by their stems while they were
eaten. The girls shrieked and attacked the cookies, and of all the
treats Elnora offered perhaps none was quite so long remembered as that.
When Elnora took her basket, placed her books in it, and started home,
all the girls went with her as far as the fence where she crossed the
field to the swamp. At parting they kissed her good-bye. Elnora was a
happy girl as she hurried home to thank her mother. She was happy over
her books that night, and happy all the way to school the following
morning.
When the music swelled from the orchestra her heart almost broke with
throbbing joy. For music always had affected her strangely, and since
she had been comfortable enough in her surroundings to notice things,
she had listened to every note to find what it was that literally hurt
her heart, and at last she knew.
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