The woods were fragrant with ripening grapes and decaying vegetation,
and were putting on a garb whose flaming splendor surpassed the hues of
spring.
Indeed, everything conspired to win a boy or girl away from study or
work, and to cause the wish on the part of both that they might be a
bird or squirrel, with no thought of the responsibilities of life.
Nellie Ribsam forgot for the time everything else except her own
enjoyment; but by-and-by the woods took on such tempting looks that she
turned off from the highway she had been following, with the intention
of taking a stroll, which she meant should not lead her out of sight of
the road.
The first view which stopped her was that of a large vine of wild
grapes.
Some of them were green, some turning, while others were a dark purple,
showing they were fully ripe: the last, as a matter of course, were at
the top.
These wild grapes were small and tart, inferior to those which grew in
the yard of Nellie at home; but they seemed to be trying to hide in the
woods, and they were hard to get, therefore they were more to be desired
than the choicest Catawba, Isabella, or Concord.
The main vine, where it started from the ground, was as thick as a man's
wrist, and it twisted and wound about an oak sapling as if it were a
great African constrictor seeking to strangle the young tree. Other
vines branched out from the sides until not only was the particular
sapling enfolded and smothered, but the greedy vine reached out and
grasped others growing near it.
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