{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36760/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36760","id":"gutenberg_36760","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36760","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction","Fairies -- Juvenile fiction","Girls -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction","Obedience -- Juvenile fiction","Squirrels -- Juvenile fiction"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Heather Clark and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  MINNIE;\n  OR,\n  THE LITTLE WOMAN\n\n  A Fairy Story.\n\n  BY THE AUTHOR OF \"VIOLET.\"\n\n\n  BOSTON:\n  PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY,\n  13 WINTER STREET.\n  1857.\n\n\n\n\n  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by\n  PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.,\n  In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of\n  Massachusetts.\n\n\n  STEREOTYPED BY\n  HOBART & ROBBINS,\n  New England Type and Stereotype Foundry,\n  BOSTON.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: MINNIE AND THE SQUIRREL.]\n\n\n\n\nHOW THE STORY CAME TO BE WRITTEN.\n\n\nOne evening, last summer, a little girl, with laughing eyes that no one\ncould resist, looked up into my face, and said,\n\n\"'Touldn't you wite me a story?\"\n\n\"Yes. What shall it be about?\" was the answer.\n\n\"O, wite something I could wead myself,--something with\npictures,--something like Tom Thumb, you know; and I shouldn't care if\nit had pink covers, too, and wasn't larger than--this.\" And she held up\nthe palm of a rosy hand.\n\nIn a moment more she came bounding back to whisper, \"I shouldn't care if\nyou left off the fingers, only make a _cunning_ story, and something I\ncan wead.\"\n\nInstead of leaving off, I should have to add a great many of Minnie's\nfingers, to cover the book, which would grow so large, and I couldn't\nhelp it, any more than you can when a little bud opens out to a great\nflower. So, I ask her forgiveness; hoping that she will find, inside of\nthe volume, something \"cunning\" enough to make her forget the covers.\n\nAnd now, dear children, if you like my story, you must all thank Minnie\nC----, to whom it is dedicated, with the heartiest good wishes of\n\n    THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                           PAGE\n\n  CHAPTER   I.--RODOCANACHI,                  9\n\n     \"     II.--DANDELION,                   15\n\n     \"    III.--MINNIE'S HOME,               21\n\n     \"     IV.--MINNIE AND THE SQUIRREL,     26\n\n     \"      V.--A SQUIRREL-BACK RIDE,        31\n\n     \"     VI.--LIVING IN A TREE,            36\n\n     \"    VII.--MASTER SQUIRREL,             40\n\n     \"   VIII.--NIGHT,                       45\n\n     \"     IX.--THE NEW HOME,                51\n\n     \"      X.--IN THE WOODS,                56\n\n     \"     XI.--THE SQUIRREL'S PARTY,        60\n\n     \"    XII.--BY THE RIVER,                63\n\n     \"   XIII.--YELLOW-BIRD,                 70\n\n     \"    XIV.--IN A BIRD'S NEST,            75\n\n     \"     XV.--MINNIE AND THE BIRDS,        81\n\n     \"    XVI.--THE SQUIRREL'S TEAM,         87\n\n     \"   XVII.--THE MOONLIGHT DANCE,         92\n\n     \"  XVIII.--THE LITTLE NURSES,           96\n\n     \"    XIX.--MOUSE,                      100\n\n     \"     XX.--HOUSEKEEPING,               104\n\n     \"    XXI.--TROUBLE FOR MINNIE,         108\n\n     \"   XXII.--TROUBLE STILL,              113\n\n     \"  XXIII.--FREE AT LAST,               118\n\n     \"   XXIV.--TURTLE,                     123\n\n     \"    XXV.--MINNIE'S WINGS,             127\n\n     \"   XXVI.--HIDE-AND-SEEK,              130\n\n     \"  XXVII.--MINNIE IN PRISON,           135\n\n     \" XXVIII.--NARROW ESCAPES,             140\n\n     \"   XXIX.--THE LITTLE SEAMSTRESS,      146\n\n     \"    XXX.--STORK,                      151\n\n     \"   XXXI.--THE SEA-SHORE,              156\n\n     \"  XXXII.--STORM AND CALM,             161\n\n\n\n\n  MINNIE;\n  OR,\n  THE LITTLE WOMAN.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nRODOCANACHI.\n\n\nSomewhere in Massachusetts is a little town as beautiful as a garden.\nNay, in summer-time I think this place is prettier than a garden; for it\nis not laid out in long, stiff beds and paths; but the roads wind about\nlike rivers under its shady trees, and, wherever you see a bed of\nflowers, a cosey little house is sure to rise up in its midst; and then\nthe hills,---- Did you ever read about the giant, who wouldn't give the\nfairies any peace, but chopped them up for mince-meat, and did all\nkinds of wicked things, till they resolved to kill him, if they could?\n\nThe fairy queen, who was very wise, knew that the giant's strength lay\nin a great brass helmet which he wore; so she told her people to watch,\nand, if ever he laid it aside, to steal this, and hide it away.\n\nNow, one summer's day, the giant went hunting, and had such good success\nthat he came home with his arms full of game, tired and warm enough.\n\nI don't remember the giant's name: perhaps it was Ugolino, or Loeschigk,\nor Rodocanachi. We'll call it Rodocanachi. Down he threw his game,--the\ndeer and squirrels he had killed to eat; and the poor little robins, and\nblue-birds, and humming-birds, he had only killed for the pleasure of\nseeing them flutter down from the boughs where they were singing\nsweetly--down to the ground, with their broken, bloody wings.\n\nRodocanachi threw his game aside, and then lay down himself to drink\nfrom a pretty stream that ran bubbling and sparkling under the shady\ntrees. He was so thirsty, and had such a monstrous swallow, that,\nbefore long, the stream stopped flowing, and, wherever the sun fell into\nits bed, the pebbles began to grow white and dry. He had drank it almost\nup, when the giant said to himself, \"Bah! what a shallow river, and how\nthe pebbles get into my teeth! I must have a drop of wine to take away\nthe earthy taste.\"\n\nThere, under the shady trees, Rodocanachi drank and smoked, till his\nhead grew hotter than ever, and so confused, that he stretched himself\nupon the grass; and, while trying to collect his thoughts, fell fast\nasleep.\n\nThen, how the fairies flew into sight! Down they swung, from all the\nhigh oaks and elms, on rope-ladders made of spider-web; and, from under\nthe broad mulleins, up they poured in a swarm; from the other side of\nthe stream they fitted up rafts of pond-lily leaves, and came floating\nacross; for, after the giant turned away, the river had run full again.\nWhat had seemed beds of fern-leaves came marching down from the\nhill-side, or out from the deep shade,--they were fairy armies, with\nbanners all astir; and such a rustling as they made, and such a patter\nof little feet, and flutter of tiny wings, and singing and shouting of\nsoft, glad voices, you never heard!\n\nLast came the car of the fairy queen, a pearly pond-lily, lined and\nfringed inside with gold, with a golden seat, and drawn by six\nbright-blue dragon-flies, that sprinkled a light from their transparent\nwings, as the car shed fragrance all along its way.\n\nThe queen arose and lifted her sceptre; which was tipped with a diamond\nso bright it shone like a star, and could light a path at midnight\nthrough the densest wood. She stretched this wand forth, and the noisy\nmultitude grew so still--so still that you could not hear a sound,\nexcept the giant's breathing;--then she spoke:\n\n\"The time we have watched and waited for so long, so impatiently, has\ncome; the wicked Rodocanachi is in our power at last. Say, what shall we\ndo with him, my subjects?\"\n\nThen swelled forth a breeze of little voices, so confused that you could\nnot tell one from another; and the queen's wand rose again.\n\n\"We have not a moment to waste, be still, and hear the advice of my\ngeneral.\"\n\n\"If I have led your armies bravely, O, great queen--\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" interrupted the queen, \"but what shall I do with\nRodocanachi? I'll praise you, and receive your compliments afterwards.\"\n\n\"Suffer me, then, to go alone, and, with my spear, this tough\nacacia-thorn, put out the giant's eyes.\"\n\nThe fairy shook her head, and turned to a statesman, the greatest in all\nher kingdom:\n\n\"What say you?\"\n\n\"Cut off his hands and feet, and make mince-meat of them, as he made of\nmy cousin's family!\"\n\nAgain the queen shook her head, and turned to a grave judge, the wisest\nman in Fairy-land:\n\n\"Let us go together, and, while he sleeps, roll this old sinner off from\nthe mountain-top, that his bones may be well broken when he reaches the\nvalley below!\"\n\nAt this the little people all shouted for joy, and some ran towards\nRodocanachi, impatiently, to begin; but the fairy, with her sparkling\nsceptre, called them back.\n\nPuzzled and sorrowful, great queen as she was, she wrung her little\nhands and wept. \"I cannot bear to do such cruel deeds,\" she sighed; \"and\nyet how shall I banish this tyrant, and make my people happy? O, I wish\nany one, who thinks it a pleasant thing to be a queen, could stand in my\nplace to-day!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nDANDELION.\n\n\nIn the court of the fairy queen was a child, as pretty and gentle as a\nflower; a little boy, whose work it was to gather dew and honey, and\nbring it to his mistress in an acorn-cup, or strewn in separate drops\nover some broad leaf.\n\nNow, this child loved his mistress dearly, and his heart was large and\ntrue as if it had beat in a larger bosom; he could not bear to think of\ntorturing even the cruel Rodocanachi,--much less could he bear to see\nhis dear queen grieve.\n\nLittle fellow as he was, he tried to make his way toward the fairy's\nchariot; but the people crowded so, and moved their banners about so\nrestlessly, that more than once he was thrown to the ground, and trodden\nunder their feet.\n\nBut Dandelion--that was his name--caught at the tip of one of the\nfern-leaf banners, which happened to lean toward him; and, when it was\nlifted into the air, he swung himself, like a spider, from banner to\nbanner, over the heads of the crowd.\n\nThen he climbed up among the pearly, perfumed lily-leaves of the fairy's\ncar, and, all powdered over himself with gold-dust from its splendid\nlining, knelt at his mistress' feet.\n\nThe queen smiled through her tears,--for she was fond of Dandelion,--and\nasked why he had come at such a time; then said: \"Perhaps my pretty one\ncan give me some advice.\" And all the fairy-people laughed at the\nthought of a poor little boy being wiser than statesmen and generals.\n\nDandelion did not care how small they thought him, if he could but help\nhis queen; so he said, bravely:\n\n\"O, my great mistress, I was shaking dew out of the cups of white\nviolets that grow by the stream, when this giant lay down near me and\nfell asleep. Then all the people hurried, and I with them, to your\ncourt. I heard you ask what should be done with the wicked\nRodocanachi; and, when no one had an answer to give, and my mistress\nsorrowed, I crept back all alone to the hill-top, where the giant lay,\nand climbed on his shoulder--\"\n\n[Illustration: DANDELION TICKLES THE GIANT'S NOSE.]\n\n\"My brave little Dandelion!\" said the queen.\n\n\"I had picked up a feather, that a wood-dove had just let fall on the\ngrass; and with this I tickled Rodocanachi's nose--\"\n\n\"Fine work!\" growled the general. \"Suppose you had wakened him, and we\nwere all slaves again!\"\n\nBut the queen, waving the general back to his seat with her sceptre,\nsaid, \"Let the boy go on: I am curious to hear the rest.\"\n\n\"The giant stirred; his head was on uneven ground, and the great brass\nhelmet tipped, tipped, tipped, and at last it rolled away, and left his\nforehead bare.\"\n\n\"O, Dandelion, you have saved my kingdom!\" said the queen; and the\npeople all shouted \"Bravo!\" and \"Hurrah for Dandelion!\" as, without\nwaiting longer for leave, they rushed to the hill-top where Rodocanachi\nlay.\n\nThen came a clanging sound, as if all the mountains were great brass\ndrums, and twenty giants were beating them--it echoed so far and wide.\n\n\"Ah, it's the giant's helmet! and now we fairies are safe!\" exclaimed\nthe queen. She clapped her hands, and the six blue dragon-flies flew to\nthe hill-top with their chariot in time for Dandelion to see the helmet,\nstill jarring where it had been thrown by the fairy-people, far down\namong the rocks.\n\n\"Now, fly, fly quickly,\" said the queen, \"and tear up sods and bushes,\nand gather leaves, till you've hidden the helmet so safely that\nRodocanachi can never find it again.\"\n\nFairies, though little people, are not slow; and when at last the giant,\nwith a snore that sounded like thunder, awoke from his sleep, the\nhelmet, for which he began to look at once, was nowhere to be seen.\n\nAnd the giant's strength was gone. He could not break the stem of a\nwild-flower, much less lift the game he had killed that very day. He\ncould hardly totter home; and, when there, could not open his own door.\n\nSo Rodocanachi began a search for his helmet: all in vain, in vain. He\nstepped his great feet into it, and never guessed it was hid underneath\nthe grass, and bushes, and flowers, that looked as if they had always\ngrown where they were.\n\nFor a year he wandered up and down the earth, growing thinner and sadder\nevery day. He had nothing to satisfy his monstrous appetite except\nberries and mushrooms. Sometimes the fairies, in pity of his wretched\nstate, would crack a handful of nuts, or kill a frog or two, for his\nbreakfast; but Rodocanachi fairly starved and worried himself to death.\n\nAnd the queen was so grateful to dear little Dandelion, that she made\nhim always dress in cloth-of-gold, and gave him a beautiful golden\nshield.\n\nBut this was only to remind the people how he looked when the boy crept\nup into her chariot that day, all dusted over with gold. When Dandelion\ndied, a plant sprang out of his grave,--and every one said the fairy put\nit there,--that had blossoms exactly like his golden shield; and, when\nthese withered, there came globes of seed, with starry wings, that\ncould fly about in the air, and swing on the wind, from leaf to leaf, as\nDandelion swung on the fern-leaf banners once. We call the flowers\nDandelions, to this day.\n\nWhen, in summer-time, you see these golden shields sprinkled over the\nmeadows, and along the roadsides, you must think of the brave little\nfairy, who did great things because so willing to do the best that he\ncould.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nMINNIE'S HOME.\n\n\nWe have found, from the history of Dandelion, that no one is too small\nto be of use. We have found that kind hearts may succeed where wise\nheads and strong arms fail; but perhaps you will wonder what Rodocanachi\nhas to do with my story.\n\nI'll tell you. Have you forgotten that I began to describe a beautiful\nlittle town, with roads that wound about like rivers, and houses set in\nthe midst of garden-beds?\n\nGreat hills rose on every side, folding against each other as if they\nmeant to shut out the rest of the world, with its noise, and trouble,\nand weariness. So the valley looked, from a distance, like a bird's nest\nlined with moss, and leaves, and long fine grass; and the houses and\nchurches seemed like white eggs scattered among the greenery.\n\nOr, if you stood in the centre, the slopes of the hills were so smooth\nand round, that the valley was like the inside of a painted bowl:--here\nwere woods and waterfalls like pictures; here meadows of grass and\ngrain; white patches of buckwheat, and the tender green of oat-fields,\nwere striped along with brown potato-beds, and patches of dark-green\ntasselled maize.\n\nIn this gay-painted bowl, in this soft grassy nest, lived a little girl,\nwhose name was Minnie, and whose history I mean to tell.\n\nBut what has it all to do with Rodocanachi?\n\nWhy, this: people say that the beautiful valley between the hills was\nnothing less than the inside of the giant's great brass helmet! Rivers\nhad found their way through it now, and forests had rooted themselves on\nthe sods that were spread by fairy hands; yet, deep down underneath, the\nhelmet still was wedged among the rocks. Think what a giant Rodocanachi\nmust have been, when you could thus put a whole town into his hat!\n\nWhether the wonderful place in which she lived had anything to do with\nMinnie's strange history, I cannot tell. See what you think about it.\n\nThe house of Minnie's father was near the centre of the town, and in a\nstreet where there were many other houses. These were not joined\ntogether in a block, like city dwellings, but each had a garden and\nsummer-house, and a patch of grass in front for the children's\nplay-ground.\n\nAround Minnie's house was a curious fence, made of thin strips of iron,\nbound at the top with a square board, painted white.\n\nIn the next house lived a boy named Frank. He was a bright, good-natured\nlittle fellow, just of Minnie's age, with rosy cheeks and curly hair,\nand as full of fun as he could be.\n\nMinnie herself was very fond of play. Perhaps she played too hard, for\nshe did not look hearty and rosy like Frank, but was slight and quick as\na humming-bird, and fluttered about so from one thing to another, that\nit was more than her mother could do to keep her always in sight.\n\nOne minute she'd be seated quietly on the door-step, looking at the\npictures in a book; the next she was away, and you only caught sight of\nher curls going round the corner of the house.\n\nOr, perhaps, after you had looked for Minnie in the garden, she would\nstart up with her laughing eyes from behind your very chair, and the\nnext instant she was fluttering along the top of the fence, standing on\none foot, and, with her bright pink dress, looking more like a flower\nthan a little girl.\n\nThe iron strips of the fence were so far apart that Minnie could easily\npeep through, and could even crowd her little hand between the squares,\nto stroke Franky's curls, or pat his rosy cheeks.\n\nAs soon as breakfast was over, every morning, both Minnie and Frank\nwould run to the fence, and talk and play there for hours.\n\nBut Minnie was not satisfied with this; she wanted to swing on the\nboughs of her father's young fruit-trees, and, as I told you, would\nclimb the fence, and skip along the rail upon one foot.\n\nAgain and again her mother warned her that she might fall and kill\nherself, or at least soil and tear her dress, and that it was rude for\nlittle girls to be climbing trees and fences.\n\nIt was of no use. Even while she was talking, Minnie would clamber into\nsome place so dangerous that her mother would have to run and take her\ndown.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nMINNIE AND THE SQUIRREL.\n\n\nOne day, when Minnie's mother had been telling her how wicked it was to\nbe so disobedient, and how much trouble she gave every one that loved\nher, the little girl thought she never would climb another fence, but\nwould begin now, and be good.\n\nSo she seated herself on the door-step, and was quiet as many as two\nminutes.\n\nThen a little brown sparrow came hopping, hopping along the top of the\nfence, and stopped a short way off, and chirped, as if he were saying,\n\"You can't catch me!\"\n\n\"Can't I?\" said Minnie, and another minute she was dancing along the\nrail.\n\nThe sparrow flew away, and then Minnie, remembering the promise which\nshe had made to her mother, went back to her seat.\n\nShe was quiet longer this time, for she began to think how hard it was\nto be good. Then she remembered how the sparrow had flown away--away off\nalone up into the bright blue air, and could sing as loud as he chose,\nand tilt on the highest boughs of the trees, and nobody call him rude.\n\nAnd the sparrow didn't have to be washed and dressed in the morning, and\nto eat his breakfast at just such a time, and be careful to take his\nfork in his right hand, and not to spill his milk.\n\nO, how much better breakfasts the sparrow had! First, a drink of dew\nfrom the leaves about his nest; then, a sweet-brier blossom to give him\nan appetite; and then, wild raspberries and strawberries, as many as he\nwanted; and, afterwards, wild honey to sweeten his tongue, or smooth gum\nfrom the cherry-tree to clear his throat before the morning song!\n\nThen for a merry chase through the woods, instead of going to school.\n\"O, dear! O, dear!\" said Minnie, \"why wasn't I made a sparrow?\"\n\nJust then she heard a chattering in the pine-tree over her head, and a\nsquirrel tripped in sight. Minnie happened to have some nuts in her\npocket, so she quietly rolled one along the top of the fence, and\nsquirrel came down for it.\n\nI think wild creatures know which children are their friends, and which\ntheir enemies. At all events, this squirrel did not feel afraid of\nMinnie, but sat there nibbling at the nut she gave him, until he had\neaten out all the meat.\n\nJust then her mother came to the door with some ladies, who had been\nmaking her a call, and off darted squirrel, quicker than you can think.\n\n\"Now, where has he gone?\" thought Minnie; \"down under the cool grass, I\nsuppose, or far off into the pleasant woods, where he can have all the\nnuts he wants, and play hide-and-go-seek among the boughs. O, dear! I\nwish I had been a squirrel! I wonder if I couldn't run along the fence\nas quickly as he did just now!\"\n\nHer mother was talking so busily with her friends that she forgot to\nwatch Minnie, and off the little girl flew, along the rail, skipping\nand dancing, and twirling upon one foot.\n\nAnd now comes the wonderful part of my story. Minnie thought she heard\nsomebody scream, and then she looked round, and her mother was gone, and\nshe was seated on the door-step all alone again, and squirrel, on the\nfence beside her, was eating his nut.\n\n\"Come, give us another!\" he said, at last, throwing away the shell, and\nspeaking with the queerest little squeaky, grumbling voice.\n\n\"Why, who taught you how to talk?\" asked Minnie, in surprise.\n\n\"O, nobody. Squirrels don't go to school. They couldn't keep us quiet on\nthe benches, you see. It makes us ache to sit still!\" and he ran round\nand round the rail of the fence, to rest himself.\n\n\"Pray, don't go away yet,\" called Minnie; \"I want to know if all\nsquirrels talk, or what you did to learn.\"\n\nDown the squirrel jumped into the grass, pulled the blades apart with\nhis paws, and smelt of this weed and that, till at last he found what\nseemed to satisfy him, for he broke off a sprig, and went back to his\nseat on the fence.\n\n\"Minnie, how should you like to live with us?\" he said. \"We have good\ntimes, I tell you, out in the woods. We do nothing but chatter, and eat,\nand fly about, all day long. We haven't any master, and the whole\nworld's our play-ground; the deep earth is our cellar; the sun is our\nlamp and stove.\"\n\n\"But I should frighten the squirrels, I'm so large!\" and Minnie stood on\ntip-toe, to let him see what a great girl--as indeed she was, beside a\nsquirrel!\n\n\"The same weed that made me talk like a little girl, will make you grow\nsmall as a squirrel. Do you dare to taste it?\" and he tossed the green\nsprig into Minnie's lap.\n\n\"Dare? yes, indeed! who's afraid?\" She ate the leaves at a mouthful.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nA SQUIRREL-BACK RIDE.\n\n\nMinnie had only half believed what the squirrel said, and was surprised\nand almost frightened when she felt herself growing smaller in every\nlimb. Did you ever drop a kid glove into boiling water? It will keep its\nformer shape, but shrink together so as to be hardly large enough for a\ndoll. Thus Minnie's whole form shrank, until she was no taller than\nsquirrel himself, and not half so stout, and her hands were as tiny as\nhis paws.\n\n\"Now we'll have plenty of fun,\" said squirrel; and they started together\nfor the woods.\n\nBut Minnie walked so slowly, with her little feet, that her guide soon\nlost his patience. He would dart on out of sight, and come back for her,\nagain and again; he would wait to eat nuts, and dig holes in the ground\nto bury some against winter-time; and still Minnie, for all her\nhurrying, lagged behind.\n\nAt last squirrel said, \"This will never do; seat yourself on my back,\nand I'll carry you faster than any steam-car that ever you saw. Here we\ngo!\"\n\nIt was a pretty sight--the little rider and her frisky steed, bounding\nso gracefully over the road. They had not gone far, however, when Minnie\ncalled,\n\n\"O, squirrel, pray, pray stop!\"\n\n\"What's the trouble now?\"\n\n\"You go so fast it takes away my breath, and the underbrush all but\nscratches my eyes out; and the grass is full of bugs and ugly\ncaterpillars, that stretch their cold claws to catch at me as I go\npast.\"\n\n\"Is that all?\" He darted by a post, along the fence-rails, and up the\ntrunk of a tree, and into the leafy boughs. But now it was the\nsquirrel's turn to complain.\n\n\"Don't pull at my ears so hard! Why, my eyes are half out of my head!\nIt is bad enough to carry such a load!\"\n\n\"But, dear squirrel, I shall tumble off! Here we are, away up in the\nair, higher than any house, and you skip and leap, and scramble so, it\nfrightens me out of my wits.\"\n\n\"Jump off a minute, then; I know a better way to carry you.\"\n\nNo sooner had Minnie obeyed, than he was out of sight. With one spring,\nhe had leaped to the bough of a taller tree;--and now would he ever come\nback?\n\nIt made her dizzy to look down. It seemed further than ever to the\nground, now, she had grown so small. And the insects that crept and flew\naround her looked so large! A great mosquito came buzzing about with his\npoisoned bill, and then a hard-backed beetle trolled past, and two or\nthree fat ants. And a bird alighted on the bough, and began to sing.\n\nMinnie drew down a broad leaf to hide her face, for she felt afraid that\nthe bird would think her some kind of bug, and eat her up. Perhaps he\nmeant to do so, for he kept hopping nearer and nearer as he sang.\n\n\"O, how I wish I were at home!\" thought Minnie. \"Perhaps my mother is\nlooking for me now; and Franky has been standing ever so long at the\nfence, with the half of his cake that he promised to save for me. How\ncould that old squirrel be so wicked as to leave me here alone?\"\n\nStill the bird hopped nearer, and eyed her as he sang, and looked as if\nhis mouth were watering for a taste.\n\n\"I shall be killed and eaten up by ants and worms if I fall to the\nground,\" thought Minnie; \"or, even if I reached it alive, I could never,\nnever find the way home, with these small, slow feet. Let the robin eat\nme, then.\"\n\nBut now came a rustling amongst the leaves, and a chirping, chattering\nsound, and, lo! her friend the squirrel frisked into sight. He seemed to\nbe quarrelling with the bird, for she half spread her wings, and\nstretched her beak as if she could bite him; and squirrel chattered and\nchuckled at her, and his bright brown eyes flashed with anger, till the\nrobin flew away.\n\n\"A moment later, Minnie, and you would have been changed into a song.\nThat saucy fellow meant to eat you for his luncheon,\" said squirrel.\n\"Now, don't complain that I went away; if you do, I shall go again. We\nnever allow any grumbling out here in the woods.\"\n\n\"Yet they allow quarrelling, and murder, and mischief of many kinds, I\nsee,\" thought Minnie; \"but as I've come so far, I will not go home\nwithout learning how birds and squirrels live.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nLIVING IN A TREE.\n\n\nThe squirrel now tucked his little friend under his chin, as if she were\na nut, and off they went together, fast as any bird could fly.\n\nMinnie soon found there was no use in urging squirrel to go in a\nstraight line, and pick out the smoothest paths: it was not his way. He\nmade her dizzy, often, by running along the under side of the boughs, or\ntwirling round them in his frisky way; and, in passing from tree to\ntree, whichever branches were farthest apart, they were the ones he\nchose for a leap.\n\nIf he heard with his quick ears any sound that frightened him, down\nsquirrel darted into some hollow trunk, that was full of ants and rotten\nwood, and wiry snails; but Minnie found he was growing very tired, and\nwas all in a perspiration with carrying such a burden; so she did not\ncomplain.\n\nYet, when, in passing, her curly hair caught on the rough bark, and had\nmany a pull, and her cheeks became bruised with brushing against the\nleaves, and she shook black ants and beetles out of her dress, Minnie\nmore than once wished herself home again.\n\nAt last, with a chuckle of delight, squirrel darted up the trunk of a\nbeautiful elm, and seated Minnie where the great boughs parted into\nsomething like an arm-chair; while he went to find his mate.\n\nThis, then, was her new home! Tired and hungry as she was, the little\ngirl looked about her with pleasure--it was such a lovely place. On one\nside were sunny fields; on the other, stretched the silent, shady wood,\nwith its beds of moss, and curtains of vine, and clumps of wild-flowers.\n\nCloser about her, fanning her warm cheeks, were the green leaves of the\nelm--more thousands of them than she could think of counting, and all so\nfresh, and creased, and pointed so prettily. \"Many a game of\nhide-and-seek I'll have here!\" she thought.\n\nBut now squirrel returned with his wife, who shook hands with her little\nguest very politely, and begged her to feel quite at home. Madam\nSquirrel was not so handsome as her husband, but was such a kind,\nmotherly person, that you would not notice her looks.\n\nShe had brought some dry moss from her nest, and with this made a soft\nbed for Minnie to rest upon while she prepared dinner. The good soul\neven wove the twigs together into a leafy bower above her head, and\ncalled one of her young ones to stand near and keep the flies away, so\nthat Minnie might have a nap.\n\nThe young squirrel, however, was less thoughtful than his mamma. He had\nso many questions to ask, and so much news to tell, that sleep was out\nof the question. And Minnie found that the wonderful herb had not only\nmade her grow small as squirrels, but at the same time had taught her to\nunderstand their language.\n\nAnd not this alone; by listening carefully, at first, she could soon\nmake out what all the creatures around her were saying--the bees, and\nbirds; and grasshoppers, and wasps, and mice.\n\nEven the leaves she saw talked to each other all day long; the wind had\nonly to come, and make them a call, and start a subject or two--then\nthere was whispering enough! And the grass underneath whispered back,\nand perfumed wild-flowers talked with the grass, and the river talked to\nthe flowers, or, when they would not listen, talked to its own still\npebbles.\n\nThe sun, if he did not speak, smiled such a broad, warm smile, that any\none could guess it meant, \"I know you, and love you, friends!\" And at\nnight the silent moonshine stole into the wood, and kissed the leaves\ntill they smiled with happiness, and kissed the flowers till the air was\nfull of perfumes they breathed back to her, and kissed the brook till\nall its little wavelets sparkled and laughed together for joy.\n\nMeantime the stars were winking at each other, to think they had caught\nthe cold moon making love!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nMASTER SQUIRREL.\n\n\nNo sooner had young Master Squirrel taken up his stand by Minnie's\ncouch, than he began to tell how fortunate she was in having such\nfriends.\n\n\"Yes,\" Minnie replied, \"I was thinking of them this very minute, and\nwishing I could send word to my dear mother that I was safe. Poor Franky\nmust be tired of waiting for me by this time; there's no one else to\nplay with him. And then, if you could only see our baby; she's so sweet\nand cunning!\"\n\n\"Nonsense!\" said Master Squirrel; \"she is not half so cunning as you\nare, now. I was speaking of your new friends, my father and mother.\"\n\n\"Well, what about them?\"\n\n\"O, we belong to such a fine family, and are so much respected here in\nthe woods, and my father is so rich!\"\n\nMinnie laughed. \"Who ever heard of a rich squirrel? Where do you keep\nyour money? Are there any banks in the woods?\"\n\n\"Banks enough, but they bear nothing except grass and violets. We are\nnot so foolish as to put our wealth into pieces of white and yellow\nstone. My father may not have gold, but he has more nuts and acorns\nhidden away than any other squirrel in creation. As for the silly birds,\nthey never save anything, and the worms and beetles live from hand to\nmouth.\"\n\n\"What happens to the frogs and flies?\"\n\n\"O, they creep into a hole, when winter comes, and freeze, like stupid\nflowers, till the spring sun is ready to thaw them out again. You see,\nwe squirrels are the only wise and prudent creatures. And to think that,\namong all squirrels, you should have become acquainted with the richest\none--you are very lucky!\"\n\n\"If all your father's nuts were brought together and measured,\" said\nMinnie, \"how many bushels would there be?\"\n\n\"What do I know about bushels? He has at least as many as would make a\nwagon-load!\"\n\nMaster Squirrel said this with a great air, but Minnie only laughed. \"My\nfather does not pretend to be rich, but he gives away more than a\nwagon-load of nuts every year; besides keeping all we want for\nourselves.\"\n\nDear children, as Minnie looked upon the squirrel's nuts, that made him\nfeel so important, just so God's angels look upon _our_ treasures.\nMoney, fine horses and carriages, are to them no reason for being proud.\nThey smile at our gains and savings, which seem foolish toys to them.\nThe angels have better wealth.\n\nThe squirrel was silent, and so ashamed that Minnie said, to comfort\nhim:\n\n\"I should not mind never seeing a nut, if I were as bright and spry as\nyour father; and, whether she were rich or poor, I know any one as kind\nand generous as your mother would always be respected.\"\n\n\"Poh! it is easy enough to be kind. I've seen one ant help another home\nwith his dinner; I've seen a ground-sparrow, when her neighbor was\nshot, feed the hungry young ones left in the nest; but that's\nnothing--that doesn't give one a place in the best society!\"\n\n\"I don't believe the little orphan-birds waited to ask if their friend\nbelonged to the aristocracy. But, Master Squirrel, what do you call\nsociety?\"\n\n\"I will show you, to-morrow. I heard my mother say that she should give\na grand party in honor of your coming. Though it will be like my parents\n(who are very condescending) to ask some of the common people, you may\nexpect to see along with them all the aristocracy of the woods.\"\n\nNow the mother-squirrel came with Minnie's dinner; and, sending her\ntalkative son away to give invitations for the party, busied herself\nwith spreading out the tempting meal.\n\nOf course there were nut-meats in plenty; walnuts on one leaf, chestnuts\non another, and ground-nuts and grains of wheat on a third. Then there\nwas a bit of honey-comb, and a ripe red strawberry that squirrel had run\na mile to pick on the mountain-top; and there were some slices of what\nMinnie thought must be squirrels' tongues, they were so small and\ntender; she ate them with a great relish.\n\nThen squirrel brought, in a nut-shell, a drink of fresh water from the\nbrook; and, filling her shell again, dropping in a sweet-brier leaf or\ntwo to perfume it, she bathed Minnie's forehead till the tired little\ntraveller went fast asleep.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nNIGHT.\n\n\nUpon awaking, Minnie was surprised to find all dark about her. The good\nold squirrel had tucked the moss of her couch together so nicely that\nshe was warm and comfortable; but, on reaching out a hand, she felt the\nleaves wet with dew.\n\nThen a wind stirred the branches, and far up in the sky she saw the\ntwinkling stars, and knew that it was night.\n\nNight, and the little girl was alone there out of doors! No mother in\nthe next room listening to see if her children breathed sweetly, and all\nwas well; no sister Allie to nestle close beside her, now; but the great\nlonely sky above her, and the creaking elm-bough for her cradle.\n\nAnd how high this cradle lifted her into the air! She hardly knew which\nwas farthest off, the ground or the sky. It was all so strange that\nMinnie thought she must be dreaming. She stretched her hands out in the\nstarlight; they were small as squirrels' paws,--ten times smaller than\neven baby Allie's dimpled hands,--small as those of her smallest doll.\nWho ever heard of such hands for a little girl?\n\nYes, she felt sure it was a dream; but, turning to sleep, she was\naroused by a loud snoring. Could a man be hidden up here among the\nboughs? And suppose he should catch her alive, and shut her up in a\ncage, to be advertised, and talked about, and pointed at with canes and\nparasols in Barnum's museum?\n\nBut now the snores seemed changing to sounds more like the purring of a\ncat. Were not tigers a kind of cat? Suppose this were a tiger, ready to\nspring down and seize her in his great paws, as a cat might seize a\nmouse!\n\nNo; there came next a loud, rough laugh, startling to hear in the\nsilence; and then a great flutter, and a scratching sound, and\nsomething alighted on the bough above her--something heavy, for the\nbough bent till its leaves were crushed upon her face.\n\nAs soon as Minnie could push the leaves apart she looked up, and saw to\nher dismay two great round eyes staring full at her! She covered her own\neyes, and in her terror would have fallen from the tree, had not her\ndress been caught among the leaves.\n\n\"What's that? What's that?\" a gruff voice called.\n\nThen Minnie remembered what she had heard her mother, and even the\nlittle squirrels, say, that it is foolish to fear anything; so, as\nloudly as she could with her trembling voice, the little woman shouted:\n\n\"How do you do, sir? It's a fine evening, all but the cold!\"\n\nAnd, venturing to look once more, she saw what a curious animal she had\naddressed; with the eyes of a man, he had the face of a cat, and the\nbill and body of a bird.\n\n\"Who's here? who are you?\" was his only answer.\n\n\"I am a traveller, sir. I have come from my home in the village, to make\nmy friends, the squirrels, a visit; perhaps I shall have the pleasure of\nmeeting you at their house.\"\n\n\"Not so fast! I'm an owl, I'd have you know, and do not keep company\nwith chattering squirrels. If you wish to see me you must come to my own\nhome.\"\n\n\"And where is that?\"\n\n\"In the hollow around on the other side of the elm. We owls are\nsatisfied to sit thinking over our wisdom, and do not go scrambling\nabout like squirrels, and other simple creatures.\"\n\n\"How did you happen out to-night?\"\n\n\"O, every evening I come up on this branch to take the air, and study\nastronomy.\"\n\n\"Astronomy?--what's that?\"\n\n\"It is counting the stars, and telling how they move, and watching when\nthey fall. I expect to catch one, some day.\"\n\n\"What shall you do then?\"\n\n\"Hide it in my nest, to be sure, until I can plant the seeds, and raise\nanother crop.\"\n\n\"Hide a star in an owl's nest! Why, the stars are worlds,\" laughed\nMinnie.\n\n\"O, that is what ignorant people say. This, that you see above your\nhead, is a huge tree with dark leaves, and hung all over with golden\noranges. When the stars seem to move, it is only the boughs that are\nwaving; when the stars seem to fall, it is ripe fruit that drops to the\nearth. Let me catch one, and you'll see what a fine orange-bush I'll\ngrow from the seed!\"\n\n\"I'd sooner fly out, in the pleasant morning sunshine, and pick up\nstrawberries, blueberries, checkerberries, all the nice things that grow\nin the wood,\" said Minnie; \"but, if you can't be happy without the\nstars,--\"\n\n\"I never can!\" exclaimed the owl.\n\n\"Then I would fly up where they grow, and pick them myself from the\nboughs;--not sit in a dark hole, and wait for them to fall.\"\n\nBut the owl--who thought no one's opinion worth much, except his\nown--could not agree with her, and flew away.\n\nThen Minnie, tired of talking so long, fell asleep once more, hoping,\nwith all her heart, that she should awake in her little room at home,\nwith Allie's rosy cheek pressed close to hers, and her mother stooping\nto give them both her morning kiss.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE NEW HOME.\n\n\nCool air and pleasant music were about her, when Minnie awoke the next\nday, but no home. She was wrapped in a bundle of moss, on the elm-bough,\nstill.\n\nThe bright morning sunshine lay over the leaves, fragrant odors came\nstealing out from the wood, and wreaths of beautiful white mist floated\nabove the brook, and, slowly rising, reached, at last, and melted in\nwith those other white clouds far up in the sky. Yet the lower end of\nthe mist-wreath rested still upon the brook, so that it seemed like a\nlong pearly pathway, joining the earth and heaven.\n\nMany birds had their nests in the elm, and they were feeding and singing\nto their young; or, floating up in the sky, still kept a close watch\nover their little homes among the leaves.\n\nMinnie found she had plenty of neighbors. The tree was like a town,\nfilled with people of all colors, and sizes, and occupations. Of course,\nthese were only birds or insects; but Minnie had grown so small that\nthey looked monstrous to her. The birds were as large as herself, you\nremember. Little lady-bugs seemed as big as a rabbit does to us, and\nfire-flies were great street-lanterns; butterflies' wings were like\nwindow-curtains; bees were like robins; and squirrels, as large as\nNewfoundland dogs!\n\nAs her friends did not come to bid her good-morning, the little girl\nthought she would go in search of them. She felt afraid to move, at\nfirst, but found soon that the bough was as wide for her small feet as a\ngood road would be for larger ones; so, steadying herself now and then\nby help of a twig or leaf, she wandered on.\n\nSliding carefully down the slope of a bough, she found herself, at\nlength, close by the entrance of the squirrel nest. Her friend, the\nyoung squirrel, was just sweeping the door-way with his bushy tail;\nbut, when he took Minnie in to see his brothers and sisters, she did not\nfind their home a very orderly place.\n\nShe could not step without treading on empty nut-shells, bits of moss,\nor broken sticks; then the place was dark, and did not have a clean,\nsweet smell, like her mother's parlor. In one corner lay a heap of young\nsquirrels, some so small you could put them into a nut-shell--others\nlarger, and larger still. The nest was so cold and damp that the poor\nlittle things had crept together to keep warm.\n\nMaster Squirrel said, by way of excuse, that his mother was so busy,\npreparing for the party, she had not been able to set her house in order\nthis morning; but Minnie never afterwards happened to go there when it\nwas in better order than now.\n\n\"Where is your mother?\" she asked.\n\n\"In the woods, at some of our other houses; for we squirrels don't live\nalways in one place. She is gathering nuts and all kinds of goodies for\nour supper, and will scold me well if I have not the table set when she\ncomes home.\"\n\n\"O, let me help you!\"\n\nSquirrel was glad to accept her offer, and they went to work in earnest.\nFirst, Minnie insisted upon bringing all the young ones out into the\nsun, when they stretched out their little heads and paws to receive the\npleasant warmth, while Minnie returned to see if anything could be done\nwith their disorderly home.\n\nShe sent squirrel into the woods for some pine leaves, and of these made\na broom as large as she could handle. Then she swept, and dusted, and\nbrushed black cobwebs down, and wiped the mouldy walls, and put fresh\nleaves in place of the musty moss on which the children had laid.\n\nBy this time the old squirrel had come back from the woods again; and\ntold what a beautiful place his wife had found for their feast, and how\nglad she would be of Minnie's help. He limped a little, and said his\nback ached still from carrying such a load the day before; but, as there\nwas no other way for the little woman to reach the ground, she might go\nwith him, only be sure not to pull his ears!\n\nNo sooner said than done. Down the trunk of the tall tree they went\nwith a leap or two, and along the stone walls, over bushes, through\nhollows, further and further into the wood, till they came to a lovely\nspot.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nIN THE WOODS.\n\n\nA number of trees stood so closely together that they seemed like a\nsolid wood; but, when the squirrel had made a way for Minnie to pass\nunder the heavy boughs, she found inside a circle, covered only with\nfine soft grass and moss, a few wild flowers nodding across it, and the\nleaves, with their low, pleasant rustle, closing around it like a wall.\n\n\"Now,\" said the old squirrels, who were too wise to be proud and\nboastful like their son, \"now, Minnie, you know better than we what is\nproper, and you must tell us how everything shall be arranged.\"\n\nNothing could please Miss Minnie better than this. Her mother had not\neven allowed her to go into the supper-room before company came; and\nhere she was to order all things, and be herself the little mistress of\nthe feast!\n\nThey decided to have their party in the afternoon, because at that time\nthe sunshine always slanted so pleasantly through the wood. If they\nwaited till evening, the dew would begin to rise, and there was no\ndepending on the moon for light; and their children, besides, would be\nneeding them at home.\n\nFirst, Minnie said, they must have a more convenient entrance to the\nsupper-room. On one side stood a large azalea, or wild honeysuckle, in\nfull flower, and near it a sweet-brier; between these were some\nwhortleberry bushes, around the roots of which last Minnie made the\nsquirrels burrow till she could drag them away.\n\nThen, smoothing the broken earth, she covered it with sods of fresh\nmoss, while overhead the sweet-brier and azalia met in a beautiful\narchway of fragrant leaves and flowers.\n\nAnd it was so much prettier to have flowers growing in the ground than\nif they had been cut and brought from some green-house! Both Minnie and\nthe squirrels were delighted with their dining-hall.\n\nNext they spread shining oak-leaves for a table-cloth, which was better\nso than if it had all been in one piece, because now, wherever a tuft of\nviolets grew, or any of the slight starry flowers that dotted over the\ngrass, they could remain there, and save the trouble of arranging vases.\n\nThen came a great variety of food,--nuts, honey, grain and berries,\napple and quince seeds, bits of gum, and strips of fragrant bark. Minnie\nwas shocked when she saw among the game a dish of dead ants, and one of\nfrogs' feet, and another of red spiders; but the squirrel said she must\nhave something to suit all tastes, and the birds would be disappointed\nif they had not animal food.\n\nThen she begged Minnie to slice some cold meat for her, and brought a\nbig black beetle to be shaved up like dried beef, and an angle-worm to\nbe cut in slices for tongue.\n\n\"O, dear!\" exclaimed Minnie, as the little round slices of this last\nfell into the plate, \"can this be what I mistook for tongue, and\nrelished so heartily last night?\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" squirrel answered; \"it is one of the tenderest meats we\nhave.\"\n\nMinnie resolved to eat no more dainties in the wood, until she had first\nfound out their names; but she had not time to grieve much over her\nmistake, for the father-squirrel came to tell that he had promised his\noldest children a race in the woods, and invited her to make one of the\nparty.\n\nShe was glad to take lessons in running of such a quick little body as\nhe; and, while his young ones frisked and bounded, and chased each\nother, he was very patient in teaching her all his arts. Before many\nsuch lessons, Minnie could balance herself on the most uneven and\nunsteady place; could climb slippery boughs, skip without stopping over\nthe crookedest places, and even leap from branch to branch, so nimbly\nthat squirrel was proud of his pupil.\n\nHe would not let her go very far that day, because she must be fresh for\nthe afternoon, when his guests would come.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE SQUIRREL'S PARTY.\n\n\nIn due time the company arrived, and all were in such good spirits, and\nso polite, that Minnie thought she had never known a more charming\nparty.\n\nOn each side of herself sat the birds; a blue-bird and yellow-bird\nfirst, then a thrush and an oriole, then--cunning little creatures!--a\nwren and an indigo-bird. The robins and bobolinks were not invited,\nbecause they were such gluttons. The crows could not come, because they\nwere so quarrelsome, and the cherry-birds were too great thieves.\n\nThen came a whole row of squirrels, that sat with their bushy tails up\nin the air, and paws folded quietly, notwithstanding the nuts before\nthem, while they made themselves agreeable to the meek mice and moles,\nthat were all a-tremble, not often finding themselves in such grand\ncompany.\n\nOne large gray squirrel came in his rough hunting-coat; but he talked so\nloud and boastfully, and seemed to look down upon all the others with\nsuch contempt, they were not sorry when he said, at last, that he had\npromised to take a walk with his distinguished friend the rabbit, and\nmust therefore go home.\n\nSeveral toads were invited, and Minnie had even taken pains to roll some\nround stones into the room for their seats. They came, and were chatting\ngayly, when their eyes, that wandered over the delicious feast, fell\nupon the dish of frogs' feet, and home they hopped at once, offended. It\nwas a great mistake, on the squirrel's part, to bring such guests and\nsuch a dish together; for who could be expected to relish seeing his\ncousin chopped up into souse?\n\nThe butterflies came, but declined taking seats at the table, as they\nnever ate anything. They fluttered above, with their beautiful velvet\nwings, and clung to the flowers, bending them down with their weight;\nand, when Minnie observed how wistfully the birds were eying them, she\nthought perhaps the butterflies had a better reason than they gave for\nkeeping at a distance.\n\nAfter eating all they wanted, squirrel proposed that his guests should\ngo to the brook for a drink. It was not far, and Minnie had swept the\npath nicely with her broom, and spread new moss wherever the ground was\nbare; so they seemed to be walking on a strip of green velvet carpeting,\nas, two by two, they started for the water-side.\n\nSome little green, graceful snakes followed on from curiosity, while\nover the heads of the party fluttered all the butterflies; and a rabbit,\nchancing to see them, very politely asked squirrel if he might join the\nguests.\n\nMeantime the toads, that had crept into a corner to mutter about their\ninsult, hopped back to the table, and, along with a swarm of flies and\nants, and greedy robins, crows, and bobolinks, soon finished all that\nthe company had left.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nBY THE RIVER.\n\n\nA yellow-bird was the companion of Minnie's walk, and a pleasant little\nman he was, with his gayly-spotted wings, his graceful manners, and\nmusical voice.\n\nThe oriole was handsomer, and had a sweeter song; but he was proud, and\nspoke in a sharp, short way, that was not agreeable. Minnie said to\nherself, \"I can listen to oriole while he sings at the top of the tall\nelm; but for my friend I will choose some one with gentler behavior, if\nhe hasn't so loud a song.\" Do you think Minnie was wise?\n\nYellow-bird was equally pleased with his companion, and very ready to\nconverse. He told her that he had often wished to become acquainted with\nsome of his neighbors in the village, but dare not trust them.\n\n\"Why?\" Minnie asked.\n\n\"O, one of my brothers, after eating the plant that makes us wise, heard\na little girl begging him to come and live with her. She promised a\nbeautiful cage in the summer-house, and plants to eat and drink.\"\n\n\"And he went?\"\n\n\"Yes; he was so unwise. Before the end of a week the little girl had\nforgotten to feed him, and he lay dead in the bottom of his cage.\"\n\n\"Yet that was an accident; the little girl was sorry, I am sure.\"\n\n\"Her sorrow did not bring him to life again; and I could tell sadder\nstories--O, too sad stories for to-day!\" Here yellow-bird stopped\ntalking, and breathed forth a low, mournful song.\n\nThe squirrel, hearing him, turned quickly: \"This will never do! Why,\nfriend, we're going to a feast, and not a funeral; pray give us some\ngladder music.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, I never can sing so soon after eating,\" said yellow-bird,\nwho was not willing to leave his new friend.\n\nAs for Minnie, she had never stood so near a bird before in her life;\nand could not be satisfied with looking into yellow-bird's round eyes,\nand stroking the soft feathers on his neck. She had a hundred questions\nto ask; and he answered so graciously that she began to think she would\nrather live with those gentle creatures, the birds, than with her kind,\nbut wild and frisky friends, the squirrels.\n\nYou may remember it was Minnie's wish at first to live like a bird, on\nthat morning--how long ago it seemed to her now!--when she had sat on\nher father's door-step, and watched a sparrow soar into the sky, and\nsing.\n\nThey had not time for many words before reaching the water, which in one\nplace spread to a little pond beneath the trees, and reflected the leafy\nbranches on every side, and the sky, with its pearl-white clouds, and\nthe sunshine that lay across it like a path of gold.\n\nAn aged birch-tree, uprooted by the wind, had fallen into this pond. Its\nlarge and handsome boughs were still alive; and here flew oriole at\nonce, singing as he alighted, and swung on the tip of a branch. The\nother birds followed through the air, except Minnie's friend, who\nwalked quietly on with her. The squirrels bounded in a trice across the\nbroad, white trunk of the tree. The mice and the moles followed them,\nand the rabbit was not far behind. The butterflies chose to hover above\nthe sunny water in a flock.\n\nThen squirrel made a speech, thanking his guests for the honor they had\ndone him in spending so much time at his poor feast. He was glad it had\nbeen in his power to make some return, by presenting to them so\ndistinguished a guest.\n\nThe rabbit took this compliment to himself; so he replied by assuring\nsquirrel that the obligation was all on the part of his guests. In\nending, he regretted that he had not chanced to meet earlier with such\npleasant companions; the truth was, he had only an hour ago been able to\nrid himself of a gray squirrel, a rough, unmannerly fellow from the\nbackwoods, whom he would have been ashamed to bring into such polite\nsociety.\n\n\"Ha!\" said squirrel, forgetting his dignity as host, \"the very chap that\nhonored us with his presence a little while, and boasted about his\nmighty friend, the rabbit.\"\n\nRabbit folded his ears together very wisely at this, and replied: \"A\nperson who feels it necessary to boast of his friends, is never much in\nhimself. Now, _I_ always feel that I'm as good as any of my\nacquaintance.\"\n\n\"I wonder which is worse vanity,\" thought Minnie, \"to boast of one's\nfriends or one's self!\"\n\nBut here yellow-bird hopped upon a spray, and sang a delightful little\nsong in honor of their fair guest, whom he compared to a flower, a\nlittle cloud, a soft willow-bud of the spring-time, a white strawberry,\nand many other things in which birds delight.\n\nThe company were so pleased that they begged to hear the song\nagain,--all except rabbit, who, finding his mistake at last, hopped\nfurther in among the leaves, and hid himself, feeling very much ashamed.\n\nThen yellow-bird, instead of repeating his first song, sang another,\nwhich was sweeter still. It told how full the world might be of love\nand happiness, how many such good times as this all creatures might\nhave, if they would but be gentle and kind, willing to please, and ready\nto forgive.\n\nAs the last note died away, oriole, impatient to show his skill,\nremarked that yellow-bird's song was too much like a sermon; and,\nwithout waiting for invitation, he then gave what seemed to him a better\none.\n\nAnd it was enchanting music. O, so clear, and wild, and joyous, that it\nmade the other birds lift their wings, and long to fly!\n\nHearing a plunge in the water near, and a sigh of pleasure, Minnie\nlooked down between the branches, and saw a handsome green frog, that\nhad come to listen to the music; and swarms of little fish, with\nrainbow-colors on their silver scales, all listening too.\n\nSo the afternoon passed in speeches and music. The squirrels, who could\nnot sing, told stories that made the company laugh right heartily. Even\nMinnie took her part in the entertainment, by relating how people in the\nvillage lived, how they ate, and drank, and slept, and why they did\nmany things which had puzzled the birds and squirrels amazingly.\n\nAll this was as interesting to her listeners as it would be for us to\nread Robinson Crusoe, or Dr. Kane's travels among the icebergs and\nEsquimaux.\n\nRepeating their thanks to squirrel, and each one politely urging Minnie\nto visit him, the company now went home.\n\nYellow-bird insisted upon taking Minnie on his wings, but soon found the\nlittle woman so heavy that he was satisfied to let her dance along by\nsquirrel's side, and flew off to find his young. He had, too, a world to\ntell his mate about the merry feast, and the queer little lady in whose\nhonor it was given.\n\nI am afraid all the birds and squirrels that were at the party kept\ntheir mates or their brothers and sisters awake that night, relating\nwhat they had seen and heard. Even the mice talked about it in their\ncellars under ground; and oriole did not sleep a wink, he worked so hard\ncomposing a song to Minnie's eyelashes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nTHE YELLOW-BIRD.\n\n\nAt daybreak the next morning yellow-bird came with the indigo-bird and\nthrush, and awakened Minnie with their charming songs. Sunrise, you\nknow, is the time birds always choose for serenades; and I am not sure\nthey are wrong--everything is so fresh, and still, and dewy, then.\n\nShe could hardly wait till the music was over before shaking away the\nmoss in which she had slept, and going to bid her friends good-morning.\nSkipping fearlessly along the boughs,--for she had not forgotten\nsquirrel's lessons,--just as the birds were preparing to fly away,\nMinnie surprised them with a sight of her merry face.\n\nThey did not chat long, for Minnie could see that her friends were\nimpatient for their morning sail up in the fresh blue air. So she\nbegged them to fly away, while she would go to the squirrel-nest and\nfind if breakfast was ready.\n\nShe met squirrel, who, though much fatigued, and sometimes obliged to\nput his tail before his mouth in order to hide his gapes, was as civil\nas ever, and bade her a pleasant good-morning.\n\nHis wife did not happen to be in so amiable a mood. Not only was she\ntired from all the work and anxiety of the day before, but Minnie's\nsweeping and dusting, she said, had put everything out of order in her\nnest. Besides this, the children had taken cold from staying out of\ndoors so long, and the light of the sun had given them weak eyes.\n\nMinnie was troubled, and offered her help in making things go right\nagain.\n\n\"No,\" Mrs. Squirrel replied, \"I have had enough of such help, and now\nyou can best assist me by keeping out of the way.\"\n\nThis was very rude, and brought tears into Minnie's eyes. It was bad\nenough, she thought, to be so far from home, but to be treated unkindly,\nand after she had worked so hard in hopes to please the squirrel, this\nwas more than she could bear.\n\nRunning so far from the nest that she could not hear the angry voice\nwithin, Minnie seated herself on the bough, and, all alone there,\nthought of her pleasant home, and the mother who was so ready to praise\nher when she did right, and just as ready to forgive her when she did\nwrong. She seemed to see Franky looking through the fence, waiting, and\nwondering if she would never come. Then she saw Allie open her large\neyes, and, peeping between the bars of her crib, look all about the\nroom, and stretch her little hands forth for Minnie, and no Minnie\nthere!\n\nEven if she went back now, would they know her, shrunk as she was to a\nmere doll? Before she could reach her father's door, wouldn't the boys\nin the street pick up such a curious little being, and put her in a\ncage, or sell her, perhaps, to be killed and stuffed for some museum?\n\n\"O, I haven't any home, or friends in all the world!\" she said, and,\ncovering her face with her little hands, Minnie sobbed as if her heart\nwould break.\n\n\"Hallo, there! what's the matter?\" shouted young Master Squirrel from\nthe bough above. \"It can't be you're crying because the old woman is\ncross? Why, she'll be good as chestnuts by the time you see her again.\nHere, catch these nuts! she made me crack them for your breakfast.\"\n\nMinnie thanked the squirrel, but she could not eat. Her heart was too\nheavy. She hoped that, when the birds came back, they would not find\nher, for she was too much grieved to talk, or even listen to music.\n\nShe had hardly drawn the leaves about her, when she saw the indigo-bird,\nand then the thrush, making their way towards the elm. Minnie held her\nbreath, while they alighted and hopped from bough to bough, and turned\ntheir heads on one side to peer between the leaves, and sang little\nsnatches of song, that she might hear and answer them. At last they flew\naway, and when oriole came, he had no better success.\n\nThen came yellow-bird, with a fresh ripe strawberry in his mouth. He\nalso looked in vain, until, just as he was lifting his wings to go, his\nquick ear caught a sigh, so low that only loving ears would have heard\nit, and he flew at once to Minnie's feet.\n\nShe still held the leaves fast, and yellow-bird was obliged to tear them\nwith his beak before he could be certain that she was within.\n\n\"Poor little soul! what is the matter?\" he said, when he saw her sad\nface, wet with tears.\n\nThen Minnie put her arms around yellow-bird's neck, and told all her\ntroubles. He did not speak a word until she had finished, when he\nexclaimed, \"You shall not live with the squirrels any longer. Come to my\nown warm little nest on the other side of the elm. My mate will be glad\nto see you, and you shall have sunshine and music all day long. Tell me,\nMinnie, will you come?\" He ended with a little strain of song, so sweet\nand pleading that Minnie could have kissed him for it, only, you know, a\nbird's mouth is rather sharp to kiss. She pleased him better by\npromising to go that very hour to his nest.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nIN A BIRD'S NEST.\n\n\nYellow-bird's nest was all that he had promised. It was built on one of\nthe outer boughs of the elm, deep enough among the leaves to be shady at\nnoon, yet not so deep but in the cool of morning the sunshine could rest\nupon it.\n\nThen the view was much finer than that from squirrel's side of the tree.\nMinnie looked down upon fields of wild flowers all wet with dew, across\nat hills that rose grandly against the sky; and, better still, between\nthe trees she caught a glimpse of the town, with its white spires and\ncottages.\n\nIt was an important day with yellow-bird, for a whole brood of young\nones were leaving his nest for the last time. He had taught them to sing\nand fly, had shown them where to find food, and given so much good\nadvice, that now he did not feel afraid to trust them by themselves.\n\nHe brought his children to see Minnie before they left, made them sing a\nlittle song of welcome and farewell, and then watched with pleasure as\nthey flew into the wood, and soon were lost amid its shady boughs.\n\nMinnie asked if it did not make him sad to lose his treasures all at\nonce.\n\n\"O, no,\" he said; \"if one of my chicks had been blind, or had grown up\nwith a broken wing, and could not leave the nest, I well might grieve.\nNow that all has gone well, I'm only too glad to see them fly away.\"\n\n\"But suppose that, when out of your sight, they fall into trouble or\nmischief?\"\n\n\"They are never out of God's sight. Cannot he take better care of them\nthan a little bird like me? Ah, Minnie, it isn't best to fret! The\nsmaller and weaker we are, the more care our heavenly Father takes of\nus.\"\n\nYellow-bird's mate came now to see what her husband could be talking\nabout, and invited Minnie to take a nearer look at her nest, which she\nhad been industriously cleaning and mending since her children went.\n\nIt was a smooth, cool bed of horse-hair and moss, set prettily amidst\nthe thick green leaves. Slender roots and threads were woven across the\noutside, and what was Minnie's delight to find among them a scrap of one\nof her mother's dresses, which yellow-bird said he had picked up beneath\na window in the village, for it was so soft, and covered with such\nbright flowers, he knew it must please his mate!\n\nMinnie felt that the nest would be dearer to her, and more like home\nthan ever now. Yet she knew it was not civil to leave her good friends,\nthe squirrels, without a word of good-by; so, lighter-hearted than when\nshe left it, she skipped back to their den on the other side of the\ntree.\n\nShe found the old lady's temper very much improved, perhaps because she\nhad her nest in what she called order again. Minnie tumbled over\nnut-shells, tore her dress against thorny sticks, and, when she\nstretched her hand toward the wall, trying to rise, she felt cold\nmushrooms growing out of the crumbling wood.\n\nIt was dark, too,--no prospect there,--and there was the old musty odor,\nwhich she remembered so well, instead of the sweet air and fresh green\nleaves above yellow-bird's nest; and there was the heap of sleepy young\nsquirrels squeaking in a corner.\n\n\"O, dear!\" thought Minnie, \"how could I ever have wished to live in a\nplace like this?\"\n\nMrs. Squirrel was polite once more, and kindly offered her some\nluncheon, but did not ask her to stay. And, though surprised, she did\nnot seem grieved when the little lady told her that she had come to say\nfarewell.\n\nNot so squirrel himself, who was proud of Minnie, and fond of her, and\nfelt so badly at parting, that his lips trembled too much to bid her\ngood-by, and he ran off into a hole in the ground to hide his tears.\n\n\"Dear squirrel! he has done the best he could for me,\" she thought; \"and\nnow, because he doesn't happen to have a pleasant home, I am about to\nleave him! I have a great mind to go back!\"\n\nJust then a nut-shell dropped on her head, and, looking up, she saw\nMaster Squirrel, who laughed at her surprise. Leaping a little nearer,\nhe began:\n\n\"So you've returned, Miss Runaway! My mother said it would be too good\nluck to lose you in a hurry. She was sure we should see you before the\nsun went down.\"\n\n\"Then your mother doesn't like me?\"\n\n\"O, yes! she says you're a cunning little body, and mean no harm; but,\nlike all company, you make a great deal of trouble, and do no one any\ngood, that she can see.\"\n\n\"What does your father say to that?\"\n\n\"He takes your part; tells her he's ashamed that she is not more\nhospitable; and then they quarrel well, I tell you!\"\n\n\"There shall be no more trouble on my account,\" said Minnie, with\ndignity. \"I am going to live with my friends, the yellow-birds. I have\nbidden your father and mother good-by, and now good-by, squirrel; you\nhave all been very kind to me.\"\n\n\"No we haven't, Minnie; and I have been rudest of all; and you, so good,\nto be satisfied with our poor home!\"\n\n\"Dinner-time! plenty of checkerberry buds and juicy berries in the\nwood!\" sang yellow-bird on a bough above. \"Come, Minnie, come!\"\n\n\"Good-by, squirrel! Yellow-bird, here I am.\"\n\n\"O, Minnie!\" was all the answer squirrel could make. She left him wiping\nhis eyes on his hairy paws--left him, and skipped away with her new\nfriend.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nMINNIE AND THE BIRDS.\n\n\nFor a little while Minnie was very happy with the yellow-birds; they\nwere gentle and loving as the days were long, and only disputed to know\nwhich should have the pleasure of doing most for their company.\n\nAt home it was all sunshine and music, exactly as they had promised;\nand, when there was too much sun, they flew to the wood, where hundreds\nof other birds met also, and merrily passed the long, bright afternoons.\n\nIt was like a party every day. Instead of needing to set a table each\ntime, there was the whole wood, with its flowers, berries, gums, and\nspicy buds, spread out for them to take their choice. The wine bubbled\nup freshly from their cellar, and spread into bright wells wreathed\nwith flowers. No need of corkscrews and coolers; yet, the best wine in\nthe world never tasted so good, nor left such clear heads, and such\nmerry, thankful hearts, as this simple water--the only drink the birds\nasked at this woodland feast.\n\nMinnie made friends among great and small, she was so sprightly, and\nready to please, and so willing to be pleased herself. This last is a\ngreat secret in winning friends. If people find it hard to amuse us,\nthey very soon grow tired of trying, and leave us to entertain\nourselves.\n\nBut Minnie had a pleasant word and a merry answer for every one. She did\nnot laugh at the oriole for his foolish pride, nor at the ant for her\nstinginess and silence, nor at the bee for making such a bustle, nor at\nthe indigo-bird for her diffidence. She knew it was their way, and only\ntook care not to imitate their faults herself.\n\nMeantime she never was tired of admiring their better traits of\ncharacter. Let the oriole be proud as he would; she knew that hardly any\none else could sing such lovely songs as he was always twittering. Let\nthe ant be ever so mean and dumb; who else had such an orderly house,\nand such a store of food? Let the bee buzz; couldn't he turn the poorest\nweeds into delicious honey, and set it in waxen jars of his own making,\nyet so neat, and delicate, and well contrived, that any man or woman\nmight be proud of them? Let the indigo-bird be shy; once hidden among\nthe leaves, wasn't she willing enough to trill forth the clearest,\nloudest, sweetest little songs?\n\nAh! in this great wide world there is no creature but has some precious\ngift for us, if we can only find it. The little bird is weak, but his\nvoice can fill the whole sky with music. You may know some rough boy who\nseems wicked; but be sure there's a good spot in his heart, and, by\ntreating him kindly, we may make that good spot larger. Isn't it worth\nwhile to try?\n\nThough yellow-bird, after giving many lessons, found he could not teach\nMinnie to fly, he taught her so much that, by resting one hand on his\nneck, she could easily glide along with him through the air.\n\nIn this way they fluttered from bough to bough in the wood, then took\nlonger flights through sunny meadows, and at last ventured up among the\nclouds, where Minnie had longed to go.\n\nUp, up, they soared,--yellow-bird singing for joy,--till there was\nnothing around them except the bright blue air, and, close over their\nheads, rose the pearly morning clouds.\n\nMany a time had the little girl sat on her father's door-step, and\nlonged to be where she now found herself. Many a summer morning she had\nwatched these same clouds gather and wrap themselves together, till they\nlooked like splendid palaces of pearl--pearly domes and spires\ndazzlingly bright in the sunshine, and porticos with pillars of twisted\npearl; and, at little openings, she could look through vast halls, all\npaved with pearl, and curtained with silvery hangings.\n\nAt sunset the roof of her beautiful palace had changed from pearl to\nsilver, and all its spires were gilded; the silvery hangings changed to\nrose-color; the floor, instead of pearl, was paved with solid gold, and\nthe pillars were made of shining amethyst.\n\n\"O,\" Minnie had thought, \"if, instead of this little house, with its\ndull, iron fence, I could live in such a noble home as that, how proud\nand happy I should be!\"\n\nThen, as a man passed, with his ladder, to light the street-lamps, she\nwondered if hundreds of ladders tied together couldn't reach as far as\nthe clouds.\n\n\"How I would skip up the rounds,\" she thought, \"and, when I had reached\nthe highest, send my ladder tumbling back to earth! The ladder would\nbreak, so no one could follow me; and all day long I'd fly from hall to\nhall, or, through great winding staircases, find my way to the golden\ncupolas, where I could look down into the poor old dusty earth I had\nleft.\"\n\nAnd now, without tying a hundred ladders together, here she was among\nthe clouds. Alas! the pearly halls, that from below had looked so\nbeautiful, were damp and dismal vapors. It was chilly and lonesome up\nthere, while, wonderful to tell! the earth seemed a warmer, sunnier,\nmore cheerful place than she had ever known it. There was the pretty\ntown, with its surrounding hills and woods, with its winding rivers, and\ngreen fields, and tranquil lakes. In all the sky there was nothing half\nso beautiful!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nTHE SQUIRREL'S TEAM.\n\n\nAfter the long sky-journey, Minnie was glad to reach her home in the elm\nonce more. She was weary, wet, cold, and disappointed. She longed for\nthe blazing fire in her mother's room, and the warm, pleasant drink her\nmother could mix for her. She longed to hear Frank's merry voice, and to\nsee baby Allie with her golden curls.\n\nThere was no use in longing. Even if yellow-bird should fly with her to\nthe very window, they wouldn't know her. They would only laugh at the\ncurious little creature she had grown, and hang her up in the cage with\ntheir canary-birds. So she would make the best of her home that was\nleft, and not distress her kind friends by wearing a gloomy face.\n\nShe was trying to smile, when a pleasant chirp told her that the\nyellow-bird's mate was near. She soon hopped into sight, and, welcoming\nMinnie in her kind way, told that she had an invitation from no less a\nperson than his majesty, the owl.\n\nThe party was made especially for Minnie; so she could not refuse,\nalthough it was to be held at midnight. Yellow-bird would go with her.\n\n\"And you, too?\" Minnie asked.\n\n\"Excuse me, dear, this time. I feel obliged to stay at home.\"\n\n\"So do I, then.\"\n\n\"Ah, I will tell you a secret. I have in my nest some of the prettiest\nlittle eggs you ever saw. If I should leave them they might be chilled\nwith the night-air; so never mind me, Minnie, but go and have the\npleasantest time you can.\"\n\n\"To tell another secret, then,\" Minnie answered, \"my dress is not only\nworn to rags, but so soiled that I am ashamed of it, and cannot think of\ngoing into company. See what a plight!\" And she held up the skirt that\nwas torn into strips like ribbon.\n\n\"Is that all? I watched to-day while a cruel boy was shooting in the\nwood. He fired at a poor little humming-bird, and broke its wing. It\nfluttered down among the bushes, and lies there now, I suppose, for I\ntook care to call the boy away.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"O, we understand. I cried out as if he had also wounded me; and, when\nhe began to search, went slyly round into another place, and cried\nagain. So I led the boy on, till I felt pretty sure he could not find\nhis game if he went back.\"\n\n\"But why did you take so much pains?\"\n\n\"Partly so that he should not carry the pretty little creature home, and\nsend half the boys in town out here, next day, hunting humming-birds,\nand partly because I thought the feathers would make you such a warm,\nhandsome cloak. Fly with me, now, and we'll find it; for here comes my\nmate, to take his turn in staying with the nest.\"\n\nThey quickly reached the bush, under which humming-bird lay dead; but\nhow heavy he was! It was as much as ever Minnie could do to lift him\nfrom the ground.\n\nWhile they stood over him, wondering what was next to be done, Master\nSquirrel frisked in sight, rolling before him a large, round\nturtle-shell.\n\n\"Stand out of the way!\" he shouted. But Minnie stood across his path,\nand, for fear of throwing her down, he stopped; and, leaning on his\nshell, not very good-naturedly asked what she wanted.\n\n\"O, squirrel, do leave your play a little while, and help us!\" she said.\n\"We have this heavy bird to carry home, and skin, and make the skin into\na cloak, while the daylight lasts; do be kind, now, and help us!\"\n\n\"It isn't my way to be kind; but I'll make a bargain with you.\"\n\n\"Well.\"\n\n\"Yellow-bird shall fix a harness out of straw, fasten you into my shell\nfor a horse, and I will drive home with your load.\"\n\n\"That's a good plan,\" said Minnie, not waiting to think how squirrel\nhad kept the best of the bargain for his own share. \"What say you,\nyellow-bird?\"\n\n\"Poor little woman! after such a long journey you are too tired to drag\nthis great fellow home. I will do it myself.\"\n\n\"Then I will help you twist the ropes.\"\n\nTo work they went, and soon had the harness finished. Squirrel,\nmeantime, selected a good long twig for a whip, laid the humming-bird\nacross the shell, and leaped into his place.\n\nHe could hardly wait for the harnessing to be ended; but Minnie made him\nstay until he had promised only to snap his whip in the air, not use it\non yellow-bird, and they darted on.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nTHE MOONLIGHT DANCE.\n\n\nMinnie tripped behind, watching the little team. She had grown so nimble\nthat she could keep nearer than squirrel thought.\n\nWhen he supposed he was out of sight from her, he lifted his whip, and\ngave yellow-bird a smart stroke across his shoulders.\n\nBut she knew how to punish him;--spreading her wings at once, she rose\ninto the air, and made the deceitful squirrel roll out of his chariot.\n\nHe was ashamed to see Minnie after this, so limped away, whining that he\nhad broken his paw, and would tell his mother.\n\nThen yellow-bird sung one of her droll little songs, that were like\ntwenty laughs shaken together, and, when Minnie came, begged her to\ntake the squirrel's place, and drive home.\n\nThe little woman was too thoughtful of her kind friend for that. She\nwent behind and pushed, while yellow-bird dragged the shell, and they\nsoon had it safe beneath the elm.\n\nThen they slipped off the humming-bird's skin in a trice, hung it a\nwhile on the sunny side of the elm to dry, and Minnie's good friend\npulled out from among the twigs of the nest that dear piece of her\nmother's dress, and gave it to her for a lining.\n\nYou never saw a prettier and more fairy-like little garment than this\nwhen it was finished; the tiny feathers all lay together so evenly, and\nwhenever the wearer moved they took such brilliant hues! Now the cloak\nwas red, now brown, now green and gold, and again it glittered with all\nthese colors at once.\n\nMinnie had always seemed like a bird, with her quick, light, flying\nways, and more than ever she seemed one now, with her gay feather cloak,\nand the fluttering, sailing motions she had caught from yellow-bird.\n\nMrs. Yellow-bird, having put the last stitch in Minnie's cloak, fastened\nit about her neck, and looked at her guest with great satisfaction.\nThen, at a chirp, her mate came, and readily consented to be Minnie's\nescort; so away they flew together.\n\nThe evening was mild, and clear moonlight filled the wood. Owl had\nchosen a lovely green dell in which to meet his friends, and had fitted\nit up with taste, and no little pains. All among the bushes and lower\nboughs of the trees he had tied live fire-flies and bright green\nbeetles. He had built for the dance a tent of bark, and had sanded the\nfloor with a curious dust that is found in the wood countries, and is\nlike pale coals of fire.\n\nThe birds dared not step on this fiery carpet at first, for fear of\nsingeing their feet; but owl assured them that it had no warmth. As for\nthe fire-fly lanterns, it must be confessed that the birds' mouths\nwatered in passing them, but they were too civil to eat up their host's\ndecorations.\n\nThere was an orchestra of crickets, and they played such merry tunes\nthat the guests all danced and waltzed till they were tired, and then\nit was supper-time.\n\nAlas! owl had not been so thoughtful as the squirrels, and had only\nfurnished such food as he liked himself. You may judge the surprise and\ndisgust of the company, when, to the music of the band, they were\nmarched in front of a heap of dead mice!\n\nThe owl began to eat at once, and begged his guests not to be diffident.\nNot one of them tasted a morsel, however. Some politely refused, some\nwent home angry, and a few had the courage to own that they were not\nfond of mouse-flesh.\n\nThus owl's party ended, and, indeed, all his parties, for, the next time\nhe sent out invitations, every bird in the wood respectfully declined.\n\nIf we think of no one but ourselves, we shall soon be left to ourselves.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nTHE LITTLE NURSES.\n\n\nMinnie almost fell asleep on her way back to the elm, and found it hard\nto keep up with yellow-bird, who flew on briskly as ever.\n\nHer long morning journey, the labor and hurry of making her cloak, as\nwell as the effort to bring the humming-bird home, and the party\nafterwards, the dancing and late hours, tired her so much--so much that\nshe feared all the rest in the world would not make her strong again.\n\nAnd when the tree was reached, Minnie's friends did not, as usual, offer\nher their nest. They must keep it now for the eggs. Cold and weary as\nshe was, the little girl must lie down among damp leaves, with no other\nbed than a mossy place which she found on the rough bark of the elm.\n\nIn the morning she still felt tired, lame, and stiff, yet her spirits\ncame back with the sunshine, and when she told yellow-bird she had not\nstrength enough to fly away with him, he stayed and sung to her a while,\nand afterwards brought her delicious berries from the wood, all sweet\nand ripe, and cool with dew.\n\nWith such an attentive friend to supply her wants, it was not very hard\nto sit quietly upon her couch of moss, so green and velvety, with\nsunshine all about her on the leaves, and the pleasant prospect below.\n\nYou will remember that the tree was full of inhabitants, and our Minnie\nhad made friends with almost all of them. When well and active, she had\nnever passed them without a pleasant word, or at least a nod of welcome;\nand, now that she was sick, they were most happy to sit and talk with\nher, or offer their assistance.\n\nThey brought her presents, each in his kind. The bee came up from among\nthe clover-blossoms, to place clear drops of honey on the leaf beside\nhis little friend. The silent ant stopped a moment to tell the news, and\npresented a morsel of sugar which she had hoarded in her nest till it\nwas brown with age. Indigo-bird brought a berry, blue as his wings. Some\nof the birds brought good fat angle-worms or snails, which would be\ndainty morsels to them. These Minnie laid aside for her friend Mr.\nYellow-bird, although she thanked the givers politely, as if what they\nbrought were her own favorite food.\n\nThis was not deceitful, because what Minnie enjoyed was the thoughtful\nkindness of her friends, and not their gifts. The berries were sweet, to\nbe sure, but their friendship was sweeter.\n\nMaster Squirrel came among the rest. He and a spider of his\nacquaintance had made Minnie a beautiful parasol, with the\nhumming-bird's bill for a handle, and a wild rose for the top.\n\nThe pink cup of this flower, turned downward as it was, cast such a glow\nupon Minnie's pale face, that Master Squirrel thought he had never\nbefore seen her look so handsome.\n\nSoon, tired of listening to his coarse compliments, the little girl\nasked what else it was that he kept so nicely covered in his hands.\n\n\"O, that's my mother's offering!\" he replied. \"How the old woman would\nhave scolded if I had forgotten to give it to you!\"\n\n\"Pray, let me have it. How kind your mother always is!\"\n\n\"Except when her nest is too clean, eh? Well, she saw me working over\nthe humming-bird's carcass, and thought, as the meat was fresh, perhaps\nyou'd like a scrap cooked for your dinner.\"\n\n\"Cooked meat! O, I haven't tasted a morsel since I left my father's\nhouse!\" said Minnie, in delight. \"Where could your mother have found the\nfire, though?\"\n\n\"Not far off the woods are burning,--took fire in the dry season, as\nthey often do,--and there were plenty of coals; so madam cut off the\nhumming-bird's wing, and broiled it--O, my!--till it smells so nice that\nit made my mouth water to bring it to you!\"\n\nHe lifted the cover, and there, on a green leaf, lay the dainty wing,\nall crisp and smoking now. Minnie relished her dinner more than words\ncan tell.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nMOUSE.\n\n\nBefore Minnie was strong again, yellow-bird's eggs hatched, and both he\nand his mate were busy and anxious, all the time, with taking care of\ntheir nest full of little ones. She did not see her friends so often as\nformerly, and, when they came, their visits were hurried and short.\n\nAnd, one by one, her other acquaintances grew forgetful, for birds and\ninsects don't have such good memories as we, you know. Each was occupied\nwith his own cares and amusements. Perhaps the truth was that they had\ngrown tired of Minnie, as you grow tired, in time, of your prettiest\nplaythings.\n\nShe felt all these changes. She remembered sadly what Master Squirrel\nhad said, that his mother thought company a great deal of trouble, and\nherself, though a cunning body, of no use to any one.\n\nWhat if yellow-bird and his mate should begin to feel the same? She\ndetermined not to stay and trouble them any longer, after they both had\nbeen so kind; but where in the great world could she go for a home? Who\nwould feed, and comfort, and love her? Ah! how sadly she remembered the\ndear mother who had made it all her care to watch over and supply her\nchildren's wants!\n\nEvery creature in the wood had a home and friends, except herself! And\nyet none of these homes were so pleasant, none of these friends so sweet\nand loving, as the ones she had foolishly thrown away.\n\n\"Ah!\" thought Minnie, as in the dusky twilight she lay swinging on a\nlonely bough of the elm, \"Ah! if I could whisper loud enough for every\nlittle boy and girl on earth to hear, I'd say, 'Be happy in your own\nhome, with your own friends; for there are no others like them--none,\nnone, none!'\"\n\nThough these sad feelings were weighing on the heart, the rocking of\nthe bough and sighing of the evening wind among the leaves lulled Minnie\nsoon asleep.\n\nShe awoke in a terrible storm. She was drenched with rain, which pelted\nlike pebbles, in sharp, quick drops, beating the leaves, while the wind\ndashed the boughs together, and made Minnie fear that, though clinging\nwith all her strength to the branch, she must fall.\n\nAnd she did fall into the wet grass far below, and was stunned, perhaps,\nfor she did not awake until morning.\n\nThen the sun shone brightly once more, the elm above her glittered with\nsparkling drops, and the first sound which Minnie heard was\nyellow-bird's song of joy that his little ones were safe after all the\nwind and rain.\n\n\"He has forgotten me, or he would not be so glad!\" she whispered to\nherself. Then came the thought, \"Perhaps he is happier because I am\nswept away out of his sight!\" and with this she began to cry.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" asked a little mouse, that was running about in the\ngrass, picking up worms and flies which had perished in the rain.\n\"What's the matter? Have my proud cousins, the squirrels, been treating\nyou badly again?\"\n\n\"No, they all do more for me than I can do for them; but, dear little\nmouse, I've stayed in the woods too long. Every one is tired of me.\nCouldn't you show me the way back to my mother's house?\"\n\n\"Why, Minnie, _I_ am not tired of you. Pray, don't go home yet. Come and\nmake me a visit in my snug little hole, so quiet underground. No storms\nreach there. I shall not whisk you about as squirrel has done; nor take\nyou long, weary journeys through the air, like yellow-bird. I'll bring\nyou cheese, and meal, and melon-seeds, till you grow rosy as your little\nsister Alice.\"\n\n\"My sister! What can you know about her, pray?\"\n\n\"Wasn't I at your house this morning? I have, not far from this very\nwood, a passage-way underground that leads into your mother's pantry.\nCome to my nest, and you'll hear news from home.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nHOUSEKEEPING.\n\n\nMinnie gladly followed the mouse into his hole. To see some one who had\nbeen in her dear lost home, was almost as good as to feel her mother's\ngentle hand laid on her head once more.\n\nIn the promised news she was disappointed! Alas! the mouse disappointed\nher in many things. Minnie had not lived with him long before she found\nthat she had fallen into bad company.\n\nHe was good-natured and hospitable in his way, but a sad thief, and his\nword could never be depended upon. The little girl even felt afraid of\nher own safety, when she saw what pleasure mouse took in betraying all\nwho trusted in him.\n\nThe first time she fell asleep, the mischievous fellow nibbled off what\nrags were left of her gown, to make a bed for his young. Minnie feared\nthat next he might pick out her eyes for their luncheon, and determined\nto leave him before it should be too late.\n\nBut it seemed as if the sly mouse saw into her mind, for, as she was\ncomposing her farewell speech, he came running out in the grass where\nshe had seated herself, and said, in his squeaking voice, \"Minnie, will\nyou do me a great favor?\"\n\n\"I shall be glad to do anything in my power,\" was the reply.\n\n\"Well, you didn't seem satisfied with the news I brought from home, and\nso I have resolved to go and try if I cannot pick up some more.\"\n\n\"I suppose you won't pick up any of my mother's cheese and pie-crust?\"\nsaid Minnie, laughing.\n\n\"Of course not; at least, not more than enough to pay for my trouble in\ngoing. And now, Minnie dear, I want you to take care of my little ones\nwhile I'm gone,--to feed them, and see that they don't roll out of their\nnest.\"\n\n\"That I will do very willingly.\"\n\nMouse scampered away, and Minnie little thought how long it would be\nbefore she should see him again.\n\nThe nest was narrower, deeper, and darker, than squirrel's, and quite as\nclose and disorderly. It was hard for Minnie to crowd herself through\nthe entrance; but, once within, she found paths winding in every\ndirection, some of them ending in little chambers. Part of these rooms\nwere store-houses of grain, cheese, and all manner of rubbish, which\nmouse must have stolen for the pleasure of stealing, Minnie thought, it\nwas so wholly useless. The other rooms had each its brood of little\nmice, of all sizes and ages, some almost as large as the mother, some\nnot much larger than a fly.\n\nIt took the whole afternoon to wander from one room to another,\nexplaining where the mother had gone, comforting those that began to\nfret, feeding the hungry, quieting the quarrelsome. Glad enough was\nMinnie when she had tucked up the last brood in their bed of wool, and\ncould creep out into the grass for a breath of air and a look at the\npleasant sky.\n\nShaking the earth from her cloak of humming-bird feathers, and picking a\nhandful of checkerberries, Minnie looked about for a stone to sit upon\nwhile she ate her supper.\n\nShe soon found one, smooth as any pebble in the brook. Here she could\neat at her leisure, while a band of crickets and katydids played to her,\nand all the beautiful stars twinkled over her head, and all the grass\nabout her was strung with glistening drops of dew.\n\n\"After all,\" she thought, \"this is more to my taste than being shut up\nin my curtained bed at home. What's the use in stars and dew, if we\nnever look at them? What use is there in the evening breeze, if we shut\nit out with our windows? It's a good thing to have our own way, and I\nmay yet be glad that I left my father's house.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nTROUBLE FOR MINNIE.\n\n\nAs Minnie sat meditating, suddenly the grass about her seemed to move.\nThe long blades bent this way and that, and shook their dew-drops over\nher.\n\nWhat could this mean? Had the grass feet? Could it draw its roots up out\nof the ground and walk?\n\nWhy, _she_ was moving! The grass behind lay bowed together in her\npathway, and here she was, seated close under an evening primrose, which\nopened its yellow blossoms so far from the mouse-nest that she had only\nfelt their fragrance when the wind blew.\n\nPresently something like the head of a great snake was stretched out\nfrom under her seat. Minnie sprang up at once, and, climbing into the\nprimrose branches, wondered if she were awake or asleep, that such\nstrange things should happen.\n\nThen the snake's head disappeared, and a low voice spoke from under the\nstone, \"Why do you leave me? I live in a pleasanter place than the\nmouse, and am myself more honest and agreeable. Will not the little\nwoman make me a visit?\"\n\n\"Why, what's your name, and where did you come from? and are you a\nstone, or something alive? and is that snake's head a part of you?\" said\nMinnie, half frightened, and half amused.\n\n\"What you are so polite as to call a snake's head is my own, and what\nyou call a stone is my shell, and I am a turtle, Miss Minnie,\" the voice\nanswered, with dignity.\n\n\"Pray, don't be angry with me, turtle; I meant no harm. Now the\nmoonlight has come, I can see the beautiful golden stars on your back;\nand, now my fright is over, I remember what a pleasant ride you took me\nthrough the grass.\"\n\n\"You shall have as many such rides as you want, if only you'll come and\nstay with me by the side of the brook.\"\n\nHere was the very opportunity Minnie had wished, to find a safer home;\nbut she could not forget her promise to the mouse, and leave the little\nones to suffer.\n\nWhen she told turtle this, he said that she was perfectly right, and,\ncreeping back with his load to the entrance of the nest, and finding the\nmouse was still away, he left Minnie, promising that by sunrise in the\nmorning he would return for her.\n\nAccustomed as she had long been to the shelter of the elm-leaves, the\ndampness rising from the ground made Minnie sneeze so violently that the\ncrickets stopped playing to listen. She was glad to go, at last, inside\nof the nest, and sleep in one of the close little rubbish-rooms.\n\nAt daylight she was awakened by a small brown beetle running up and down\nher arm. Rubbing her eyes, she asked, rather sharply, why he could not\nlet her sleep in peace.\n\n\"The turtle wants to know why you don't keep your promises. He has been\nwaiting this half hour, and sends word that it is a shame for you to\nsleep away the beautiful morning hours.\"\n\nMinnie sprang to her feet at once, and was following the beetle, when\nsqueak, squeak! ho, hallo! wait a minute, Minnie! came from every room\nshe attempted to pass.\n\nShe found that mouse had not kept her promise of coming home, and,\nsending a message to the turtle, she was obliged to wait and hear a\nhundred questions and complaints, and settle a hundred disputes between\nthe quarrelsome young ones.\n\nOne had pushed the other out of bed; one had trodden on the other's\ntail; one tickled the other so that he could not sleep; one snored so\nloud it made another nervous; one had eaten up the other's grain.\n\nAs Minnie crept about in this dark, disagreeable place, so full of angry\nvoices, she remembered that lost home of hers, where all was peace and\nlove. She remembered dear Franky, with his rosy cheeks and curly\nhair,--the good, generous little fellow that he was; and baby Alice,\nwith her large brown eyes; and the kind parents who never went away and\nforgot _their_ little ones.\n\nThen she rummaged the store-rooms for food; and, not finding enough to\nsatisfy the greedy mice, crept out into the air to see if she could not\npick up something for their breakfast.\n\nShe saw no turtle. The grass was bent still with his foot-tracks, but he\nwas gone. So Minnie went busily to work picking off seeds and berries,\nand the honeyed end of clover-blossoms, till she had such a heap that it\nseemed to her she could never carry it all into the nest.\n\nThen thinking, \"Perhaps, if I set the mice at work, it will stop their\nquarrelling,\" she called out several of the elder broods.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nTROUBLE STILL.\n\n\nThe young mice seemed obedient to Minnie until they had reached the\nentrance of the nest; but, at the first taste of fresh air, they began\nto frisk about, and do whatever they chose.\n\nFirst they attacked her heap of food, and ate all the choicest bits\nwhich she had saved for the little ones. Then off they ran, this, that,\nand every way, Minnie calling after them in vain.\n\nShe went in search of the runaways, but they hid safely under the leaves\nand grass, or burrowed into the ground. Tired and discouraged, the poor\ngirl turned back to collect what food was left, and give it to the\nlittle ones.\n\nAnd still the old mouse did not come home. Minnie wondered if she had\ngone on purpose to be rid of her family, and if she must herself have\nthe care of bringing up this great brood of noisy, troublesome mice.\n\nWhy not let them starve? If they grew up, it would only be to cheat and\nsteal, like their mother, and run away with people's meal and cheese.\n\nAh! but Minnie had promised. And, besides, the old mouse had been kind\nin her way, and had offered Minnie a home when other friends forsook\nher. No, she would not desert the little ones.\n\nAll at once she remembered a trap that used to stand in her mother's\npantry; suppose the mouse was caught in it! She would go this instant,\nand see.\n\nNow the underground pathway was very, very narrow, and so close and warm\nthat three times Minnie gave up her attempt, and as many times went\nback; for, when she thought that the friend who had fed her might be\nstarving, it was enough to drive away all other thoughts.\n\nStill, not being a mouse, she could not breathe in that close\ncellar-way. Her strength all left her. The little heart, that had beat\nso fast when she thought of going home, home, only fluttered faintly\nnow. She began to feel that she could not even creep back to the\nmouse-nest; that this dark passage was to be her grave.\n\nBut one step forward brought Minnie into a good-sized room, and what was\nher surprise to find this the nest of the father-mouse!\n\nHe didn't like the noise and trouble of children, he said, and so kept\naway from the sound of their voices. He hoped his mate was well, and was\njust on the point of going to see what had become of her.\n\nWhen Minnie told her fears, he uttered a frightened squeak, and said he\nwas sure she must be right, and that he was a poor, lonesome widower,\nand should never see his dear, dear wife again.\n\nMinnie cheered him by telling that her mother's trap was not one of the\ncruel ones with teeth, but only a box with wires, in which his wife\nmight live safely for several days. Then she explained how with his\nteeth and paws he could open the door and set her free.\n\nAway flew the mouse, first showing his friend a nearer and easier\npathway out into the air.\n\nMinnie now began to consider how displeased the mother-mouse would be,\non returning, to find her children scattered in all directions. If she\ncould but call them together, and see them safe in the nest once more,\nbid the old mice good-by, and ride off quietly herself on the turtle's\nback, how happy she would be!\n\nShe climbed the tall evening primrose, and looked on every side, but not\na sign of a mouse. She leaped into the grass again, and, with the stick\nof her parasol, stirred every tuft of clover and bunch of violet or\nplantain leaves. In vain.\n\nMinnie had made up her mind that they were lost, drowned in the brook,\nor eaten by some bird of prey, when she caught sight of one, with his\nbright eyes and sharp little nose peeping up from under a toadstool.\n\nThen she knew that all the rest must be near, and, jumping on top of the\ntoadstool, she said,\n\n\"You mischievous fellows, I dare say you are all laughing at me in your\nhiding-places; but hear this! your mother is dead, perhaps, and as sure\nas you stay out of your nest at night, some mischief will come to you.\nI shall waste no more time in this search.\"\n\nWasn't it ungrateful in the mice to disobey Minnie, when she had taken\nso much trouble for their sakes? And yet I have known children whose\nparents took as much pains for their sake, and who were as thoughtless\nand disobedient as Minnie's mice.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nFREE AT LAST.\n\n\nWhen Minnie returned to the nest, whom should she meet but mouse in the\nmidst of her little ones?\n\nThe mate was there also. He had come partly to help home his wife,--who\nhad lamed her foot in the trap,--and partly to boast of his wonderful\ncourage and ingenuity in setting her free.\n\nBoth were very profuse in their thanks to Minnie; for the young mice had\nalready told of her kindness and care. Minnie interrupted their thanks\nto ask the news from home.\n\nThis, mouse had half forgotten in her flight. She only remembered how,\nafter the trap shut down upon her, the pantry-door had opened, and a\nlady came in.\n\n\"Tell me exactly how she looked,\" said Minnie.\n\n\"She wore a gown of pink muslin, and pink ribbons in her hair.\"\n\n\"O, that was my own mother! How I wish I had been in your place!\"\n\n\"I wished so too. When she lifted her hand and took down a jar of\nsweetmeats, that stood close by the trap, I felt sure she'd see me, and\nhave me killed. O, how I trembled! It was as much as ever I could do to\nkeep from squeaking when I thought of my mate, and all the little ones.\"\n\n\"Was my mother alone?\"\n\n\"No; a little boy came with her, and watched while she took the\nsweetmeats out into a dish. Before closing the jar, I saw her give him a\ntaste of the delicious pine-apple.\"\n\n\"How did you know it was pine-apple?\"\n\n\"O, after my mate had set me free, we waited to lap up a few drops that\ntrickled down the side of the jar. We know the taste of good things! Was\nthat boy your brother?\"\n\n\"No; it was dear Franky, my playfellow, who lives at the other side of\nthe fence. Didn't he say anything?\"\n\n\"He asked the lady if she supposed Minnie was where she could have nice\npine-apple for tea. I couldn't hear the answer, for they both left the\npantry then.\"\n\n\"My generous Franky! He always thought more of others than himself.\"\n\n\"Don't cry, dear, and I'll call you my generous Minnie. Think! if you\nhad not been so kind, all our little ones might have starved.\"\n\n\"Yes; and my own wife might have dried up into a skeleton in that\ndreadful trap!\" said the father-mouse. \"How glad we are that we have\nsuch a kind friend to live with us always!\"\n\nAlas, it was hard for Minnie now to tell that she meant to leave their\nnest! But, hearing the slow steps of turtle brush through the grass\nabove, she thanked the mice for their good-will, and hurried out into\nthe sunshine, to meet her new and faithful friend.\n\nAs for the mice, they were so taken by surprise, that at first they\ncould only look after her, without saying a word. But, before she had\nreached the brook, Minnie heard a squeaking and scrambling underground;\nand, from a little opening, which she had not seen before, up darted\nmouse and her mate, trembling with anger, and talking so noisily, both\nat once, that she could not make out what either said.\n\nMeantime turtle, who had little respect for mice, kept on at his steady,\nslow pace, through the grass. As Minnie was mounted on his back, the\nmice were obliged to travel also, in order that she might hear their\ncomplaints and reproaches.\n\nFor they had forgotten all about gratitude, now, and could only grieve\nover the missing broods of young.\n\nAs soon as Minnie discovered this, she begged turtle to wait a moment,\nthat she might tell her side of the tale; but on he jogged, and, when\nthe mice would not be still, snapped at them so fiercely with his snaky\nhead, that they both scampered home in fright.\n\nThey had not grieved for naught. Four of the truants had drowned\nthemselves in attempting to cross the brook; two had been eaten by a\ncrow; and the rest were snapped up at a mouthful, by a spaniel, that\nhappened to run through the field.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nTURTLE.\n\n\nYou remember Minnie was a restless little soul; and will not be\nsurprised to learn that she had not lived with the turtle long before\nhis slow ways tired her.\n\nHe was stubborn and disobliging, too. If he started for a place, she\ncouldn't make him turn one inch aside; but on, on, on he crept at the\nsame slow pace,--no matter whether Minnie were wet, and half-frozen with\nrain, or parched with sunshine,--on, on, till he reached his goal.\n\nStill he was always quiet and dignified, had no quarrels with his\nneighbors, and seemed to treat his little guest as well as he knew how.\n\nIt is true he surprised her in disagreeable ways sometimes. If he saw a\npool of deep mud by the road-side he would wallow through it, sadly\nsoiling Minnie's fine cloak of humming-bird feathers. She knew he was\npartial to mud, and would not have blamed him so much had this excursion\nbeen all; but, instead of going back to the grass, where she might wipe\nherself clean, he would mount some slanting log that rose out of the\nwater, and stand there sunning himself for hours.\n\nOne day, a gentleman, who was driving past in a chaise, saw Minnie and\nthe turtle perched thus on a log, and stopped to examine the curious\nobject.\n\nTurtle drew his head inside of his shell at once, and left poor Minnie\nto her fate.\n\nNow it happened that the traveller was a great naturalist, and\nespecially fond of collecting turtles. He had hundreds of them, snapping\nat each other, and scrambling over each others' backs, in his yard at\nhome.\n\nStill he was always on the watch for a new specimen; and here was a\nfamous one, he thought. Springing from his chaise, the gentleman ran to\nthe other side of the brook, and was walking cautiously toward them,\nwhen turtle thought it time to look out for his own safety. So, dropping\nfrom the log, he disappeared in the thick, muddy bottom of the brook.\n\nThe naturalist went back, disappointed, to his chaise. Minnie, in\npassing, caught at some iris-leaves, and clung to them. As soon as she\ncould wipe the water from her mouth, she called out, \"Allow me to bid\nyou good-by, Mr. Turtle. I think I can take as good care of myself as\nyou've taken of me thus far, and henceforth I will save you the\ntrouble.\"\n\n\"What's that? I'm rather thick of hearing,\" said turtle, from under the\nmud.\n\n\"Good-by, that's all!\" And, by the time he had reached the end of his\nlog once more, Minnie was floating down the brook on a pond-lily leaf,\ndiving every now and then to cleanse herself from the mud which turtle\nhad dragged her through.\n\n\"Why shouldn't I live by myself? Where's the use in giving others so\nmuch trouble?\" she said now. \"Why cannot I play with the flowers and\nbutterflies, run races with the ripples, and bright little fishes, in\nthe brook; or sleep on any bank of moss, or in any empty bird's nest\nthat I can find? At least, let me try; and, if I grow hungry or\nlonesome, there are enough good people to take me in.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\nMINNIE'S WINGS.\n\n\nNow came the most beautiful and happiest part of Minnie's wandering\nlife. So nimble was she, and ready for sport, and so droll, and withal\nso gentle and ready to oblige, that she made friends on every side.\nWherever she went you'd be sure to find a flock of butterflies, or bees,\nor birds, about her.\n\nThey taught her all the pretty sports which they had practised among\nthemselves; once more she flew across the meadows with the birds, fed on\nthe fresh, clear honey of the bee, and played hide-and-seek with\nbutterflies.\n\nSometimes the butterflies lifted her far up into the air. How do you\nsuppose they contrived to do it, with their slender wings, which even\nthe wind could break?\n\nMinnie told them that, in her father's house stood a statue, with wings\non the wrists and feet. This was Mercury, whom the Greeks in old times\nworshipped as one of their many gods.\n\nNow, she thought the butterflies might make a little Mercury of her. No\nsooner had she said as much than a beautiful pair, spreading wings large\nenough for sails to her lily-leaf boat, floated through the sunshine to\nsettle upon the little woman's shoulders. Then followed smaller ones,\nwith blue, white, and yellow wings; and, fastening themselves to her\nankles and wrists, up, up, they all flew together!\n\nBut the next day Minnie found her little friends creeping about with\ntheir wings sadly sprained. So she would not often let them repeat this\nexperiment.\n\nO, I should have to write a larger book than this to tell you what good\ntimes Minnie had with the butterflies; into what pleasant places they\nwere always leading her; how gentle and playful they were, and how their\nwings were perfumed with the flowers they had lived among.\n\nShe loved to have them follow her when she walked, especially that\nlittle golden kind you have often seen in the meadows. Some followed,\nsome fluttered on before, as if she were a little queen, and they her\nbody-guard.\n\nThere were no angry voices now, no envious neighbors; no Master Squirrel\ncame to repeat disagreeable stories. Instead of that stifled\nsquirrel-hole in the elm, she had the sweet air of heaven about her now.\nInstead of that crowded yellow-bird's nest, where Minnie had felt in the\nway, she had now the wide meadow, with room enough in its soft, green\nlining, for herself and all her friends.\n\nBut, alas! Minnie was the one, this time, to cause trouble and\ndiscontent. Only to gratify her wilful temper, she did what she would\nhave given half the world to undo afterwards. It was a little\nthing,--you would hardly call it wicked; and yet it grieved and drove\naway her gentle friends, and would have cost her own life, but for an\naccident. These _little things_ make half the mischief in the world.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nHIDE-AND-SEEK.\n\n\nOne afternoon, tired of playing in the hot sun, Minnie thought she would\ncreep under some shady cluster of leaves, and sleep.\n\nBut the butterflies could never have play enough, and the hotter the\nsunshine, the better for them. So they did not understand that the\nlittle girl needed rest, and, thinking her weariness only make-believe,\nwould not give her any peace.\n\nThey ran across her hands, they tickled her cheeks with their feathery\nfeelers, they pelted her with buttercups, and at last began to cover her\nover with leaves of the wild rose. So full of mischief were they, that\none could no more sleep, while they were about, than if they'd been so\nmany bees.\n\nAt first Minnie tried to be good-natured, and laugh at their pranks;\nbut, warm and tired as she was, you cannot wonder that her patience\ndidn't last.\n\nSome children would have roughly driven the butterflies away--have\npelted them with stones, perhaps, and broken their beautiful wings. But\nMinnie could not forget how kind they had been; and besides, you know,\nthey were not such little things to her as they seem to us; they were\nalmost as large as herself.\n\nShe only arose, and, turning her back, would not speak to them, or spoke\nin such a snappish manner that the butterflies were frightened, and flew\naway.\n\nLeft alone, she espied, near the wood, something that looked like a\nside-saddle, just large enough for a little body like herself. She\nsprang to see if there were a tiny horse to fit, and thought how quickly\nhe should gallop off with her, so far that the butterflies could not\nfollow--no, not if they wore their wings off!\n\nBut the saddle proved only to be a flower, so much like a wadded leather\ncushion, that Minnie took her seat upon it, and was swaying back and\nforth with its tall, stiff stem, when she noticed that it was surrounded\nby a row of leaves more curious, even, than the flower.\n\nEach leaf was like a little pitcher, with such great ears that Minnie\nwondered if it were not the very kind she had heard her mother talk\nabout, when she was whispering secrets. There they stood, like the forty\njars in which Ali-Baba caught the forty thieves, in the Arabian Nights.\n\n\"Here's a place to hide!\" She had hardly said it, when the butterflies\ncame in sight, and Minnie slipped into the tallest pitcher, unseen by\nthem, she thought.\n\nBut no--they found her; and now was Minnie's time to laugh. Fold their\nwide wings together, crumple them as they might, not one of the\nbutterflies could crowd himself through the narrow neck of the pitcher.\nThey could only stand and look down wistfully at the roguish face\nwithin.\n\n\"I'm glad to see you! shake hands!\" said Minnie, shaking their slender\nwrists till they begged her to be still.\n\n\"Ah! Minnie, not so rough! Come, now, don't be cross any longer. Come\nout and play with us!\"\n\n\"Don't you wish I would? Don't you wish you could catch me?\" was all the\nanswer she made.\n\n\"But we've found a bee that a bird killed, and we saved the honey-bag\nfor you.\"\n\nIn vain they urged. Minnie was very stubborn. She laughed at the\nbutterflies, and teased them, until they were offended, and, one by one,\nflew back to the brook.\n\nAnd, now that she had leisure to look about, the little girl found\nherself in an uncomfortable place. Not only was the pitcher half full of\nwater, but so narrow that she could hardly move, and lined with stiff\nhairs, that seemed like thorns to tiny hands like hers. She would not\nstay here.\n\nBut how to escape was the question! She only climbed the sides to slip\nback again; her arms were scratched till they bled; her garments were\nheavy with the water in which they drabbled. Night was coming down; she\ncould hear the crickets sing; she caught glimpses of birds flying home\nto their nests; yet all were so noisy or so busy that they could not\nhear her voice.\n\nHow she wished, now, that her rudeness had not driven the butterflies\naway! But it was too late for such wishes; they had gone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nMINNIE IN PRISON.\n\n\nMinnie thought the night would never end. She watched the stars that\nmoved so slowly overhead; she watched the moonlight slant into the wood,\nand the pale flowers fill with dew. She heard the night wind creep among\nthe leaves; and her old friend the owl, and other wild creatures that\nhide by day, she heard prowling about in the dark.\n\nSometimes there would be a quick cry, or a patter of light little feet,\nor the dull hoot of the owl; and then all was still again, and Minnie\ngazed once more to see how far the stars had moved. O, it was such a\nlittle way, and they had so far to go before the sun would shine again!\n\nAt last she fell asleep from very weariness, and awoke to find a faint\nred light above the eastern hills. It was morning--morning! Another hour\nwould see the sun rise, and bring some friend, perhaps, to help her away\nfrom her prison.\n\nWhen some kind friend awakens you at sunrise on a summer morning, and,\nfeeling drowsy, you long to turn and sleep again, and wish daylight\nwould never come, you must suppose that you were in Minnie's place, and\nsee then if you do not find it easier to spring from your beds. Because\nthe sunshine comes to us so freely, we must not forget how precious and\nbeautiful it is.\n\nSuppose the darkness, instead of lasting for one night, should last\nwhole months, as it does at the far north. What a damp, dismal world it\nwould be! How we should grope from place to place, and, sitting in our\nhouses by the flicker of poor lamps, how we should long for the\nsunshine--for the beaming, generous light and pleasant warmth that\nspread now over all the land!\n\nThe birds began to rustle among the boughs, or, half asleep still, sing\nshort dreamy songs upon their nests; but Minnie could not make them\nhear her little voice, and had resolved to call no more, but drown or\nstarve, if she must, when a humming-bird came wheeling and buzzing by.\n\nHe was such a noisy fellow himself, that, like the rest, he might have\npassed on without noticing Minnie's cry, but he paused to drink at the\npitcher, where he knew that water was hid; and what was his surprise to\nfind an old acquaintance there!\n\nMinnie was always ready for a joke; so she popped up her head like the\nlittle men you have seen shut into boxes, that, when the cover is\nlifted, start up and frighten you.\n\nShe knew very well that if humming-bird flew away at first, his\ncuriosity would lead him back again. She laughed to see how quickly he\nflitted into the wood, and then how cautiously he came forth, and, from\nbough to bough and plant to plant, made his way to her side once more.\n\nThen Minnie's face grew serious, as she told her little friend how much\nshe had suffered and feared through the long, long night, and begged\nthat he would help her to escape. He was not half strong enough to lift\nher, though he tried till his bill ached with dragging at her tangled\nhair.\n\nAnd this work, if hard to him, was not, as you may judge, the most\nagreeable to Minnie. She persuaded the humming-bird to leave her for a\nwhile, and see if he could not find help, or, at least, find something\nfor her to eat.\n\nIt happened that, in seeking food for Minnie, the bird found something\nof which he was especially fond himself; so, after eating his fill, he\nwent humming across the meadow, never thinking again of the friend he\nhad promised to help.\n\nVery impatiently the little girl expected him every moment, until an\nhour had passed, and still she waited, hungry and alone.\n\nThen came a great flapping of wings overhead, and a rustling such as she\nhad once heard when a hawk flew into her father's poultry-yard. He had\neaten the white chicken that she called her own, and it was as large as\nshe was now. Suppose he should eat her!\n\nThe rush of wings came nearer, and the bird, whatever his name might\nbe, alighted close beside Minnie, who ventured to peep over the edge of\nher pitcher, and beheld a curious, tall, awkward creature, such as she\nhad never seen before in her life.\n\nShe coughed to attract his attention, and he turned toward her a bill as\nlong as her own arm was once, and began to stalk about on legs longer,\neven, than his bill, and that looked like a pair of stilts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\nNARROW ESCAPES.\n\n\n\"It's a pleasant morning for a walk,\" Minnie ventured to say.\n\nHer visitor answered with a croak so rough that she couldn't tell\nwhether he agreed with her or not. But, taking a long step, the stork\ncame nearer, and looked directly down into Minnie's prison, and upon the\nlittle, tired, mournful, frightened face.\n\n\"Pray, don't hurt me! I have lost my way, and fallen into this dreadful\nplace.\"\n\n\"Why do you stay here, if it is not pleasant?\"\n\n\"O, I cannot climb out, I'm so small; and the sides are so slippery, and\nall these thorns so rough!\"\n\nThen, without waiting to be asked, the stork broke the leaf-stem, and,\nturning it upside down, shook Minnie out into the grass.\n\nIt was so good to stretch herself in the pleasant sunshine, that Minnie\nfolded her hands, and lay there quietly as if she was asleep, or dead.\n\nThe stork travelled around her on his stilts, and Minnie heard him say,\n\"In all my flying, I never came across such an odd little creature\nbefore; it looks like a woman, yet isn't larger than a bird. Its\nfeathers are like a humming-bird's, and yet they are pretty well worn\nout. I wonder how it happens!\"\n\nWith this he began to poke and pull at her cloak; finally, off it came,\nand stork held it up in the sun for examination. Then he eyed the little\nsilk apron her mother had made, and twitched it by one corner, till\nMinnie began to think he would eat her piece by piece.\n\nSo, the first time he turned his head away, she sprang to her feet, and,\nwithout once looking behind, ran, leaped the fences and the fallen\nboughs, and, reaching her home by the brook-side, hid under the shadow\nof a stone.\n\nAnd high above her, she watched the stork beating the air with his\nheavy wings, and sailing on out of sight.\n\nAfter eating some savory roots, which the mouse had taught her how to\nfind, and taking a berry or two for dessert, Minnie jumped into the\nbrook, which looked warm and tempting as it rippled through the\nsunshine.\n\nShe could swim as swiftly as any fish, and was so very fond of the sport\nthat she soon forgot her weariness. Laughing and shouting, she started\nin chase of a swarm of little minnows, whose silvery sides shone like\nmoonbeams when they darted across the brook.\n\nMinnie kept gaining ground, and thought, at last, that she could lay her\nhand upon the minnows, crowded all together as they swam; but, lo! at\nthe first touch, like so many bubbles of quicksilver, they scattered far\nand wide. Some shot before her, some dodged behind her back, some hid\ntheir silly noses under stones and weeds, thinking, if only their eyes\nwere out of sight, that nobody else could see them.\n\nOf these last, Minnie caught several; but they slipped through her\nfingers again before she could be certain that she had them there. She\nmight as well have tried to hold one of the ripples of the brook.\n\nNow that the butterflies had forsaken her, Minnie found it lonely in the\nmeadow, and spent most of her time by the stream. When it was low she\nwould trip over the wet, rough stones in its bed so fast that the\ndragon-flies, with all their wings, could hardly keep pace with her.\n\nAnd, when the little stream was full to its brim, she would nestle\ninside of a water-lily, and float for hours, half asleep, watching the\nsunny ripples pass. In more restless moods, she would climb tall\nbulrushes, or swing among the long, ribbon-like iris leaves. There was\nno end to the ways she had of amusing herself.\n\nBut one day, when she was swinging, a boy mistook her for a butterfly,\nand, springing among the iris-leaves, had almost caught her in his hat.\nAnother day, as she was floating in the brook, an angler came, and threw\na pretty, gay-winged fly into the water. When Minnie seized this, a\nsharp hook pierced her hand, and, the next thing she knew, she was\nlifted high in the air on the fisherman's line! In an instant she freed\nherself from the hook, and fell back into the water; but it was many\ndays before the wound stopped smarting, and many more before it healed.\n\nStill another time, Minnie found the brook covered with mosquitoes; the\nfields were parched with the August sun; and the road, where all the\nbirds had gone to chat with the butterflies, was hot and dusty. So the\nlittle girl nestled under some cool violet leaves. In the woods violets\nblossom all the year round, you know, not plentifully as in spring, but\nhere and there you find a cluster in bloom.\n\nSuch an one Minnie found, and, when she stretched herself in the\ngrateful shade of its leaves, the sweet flowers looked down at her like\nthe blue eyes of her mother, and the wind, that was whispering through\nthe long, fine grass, seemed her dear lullaby.\n\nBut, as she leaned her head on the moss at the violet roots, and thought\nof home, there came a sudden jar, and the next moment she was rolling in\na heap of dusty earth, and vainly striving to free herself, as you have\nseen ants when their nest was broken open.\n\nA man was digging up the sod of violets to plant on the grave of his\nlittle child that was dead. Minnie feared that, if he detected her, he\nwould stick her on a pin, as some new kind of butterfly, for his\ncabinet. She hardly dared breathe until his work was finished, and the\nman had gone away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nTHE LITTLE SEAMSTRESS.\n\n\nAll dusty and ragged, Minnie stood wondering whither she should turn\nnext, and what would become of her.\n\nNo place seemed safe, no friends stood by her long; her garments were\ntorn to fringes, and the hot sun pelted down its rays upon her so that\nshe was faint.\n\nShe had barely strength to climb a tall pine-tree near, in whose boughs\nshe had often swung through the long afternoons. But that was in\nhappier days. The sighing of the wind among the branches, which used to\nbe such pleasant music, was so mournful now that it filled Minnie's eyes\nwith tears. It seemed as if a hundred soft, sad voices were calling,\njust as Minnie's heart called, for her mother to come and fold her in\nher own dear arms once more, and comfort her, and forgive her, and take\nher home, never, never to wander or be disobedient again.\n\n\"Halloa!\" said a voice. \"What's the matter this time? Have you lost your\nfine cloak, or has some one else grown tired of my little woman, and\nsent her off to starve?\"\n\n\"Pray, squirrel, don't tease me, now. I'm so homesick, and so poor, and\ntired, and discouraged, that it seems to me I shall die.\"\n\n\"That's what I said you'd come to, when you left us; but I'm your\nfriend, Minnie, though I am such a rude fellow, and I don't mean you any\nharm. Good-by!\"\n\nMaster Squirrel was frisking off, when Minnie called, \"Wait, wait!\nCouldn't you--\"\n\n\"O, you mustn't ask any favors. I'm full of business and care. Since we\nparted I have found a mate; and have a nest of my own, and lots of\nlittle ones. Call and see us!\"\n\nHe had hardly gone, when Mrs. Yellow-bird came in sight. \"My dear\nfriend,\" Minnie began.\n\n\"A pretty friend!\" she interrupted; \"think of the trouble you've caused\nme!\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Ah, you can pretend not to know; but I am sure Master Squirrel has told\nyou what he did, in spite, because I helped carry the humming-bird home\nfor you, one day, and tipped him out of the car. You never even came to\nsay you were sorry.\"\n\n\"How could I? I do not even know what the mischief was.\"\n\n\"He upset my nest, and killed all my pretty little birds!\" And she\npoured forth a song that seemed to say, \"All my little ones, all my\npretty birds gone! I can never be happy again!\"\n\nEven after yellow-bird was out of sight, the sad notes of her song came\nback, and she never knew of the tears that Minnie shed for her.\n\nA spider now let herself down by her silken thread from the bough above,\nwhere she had been listening to Minnie's words, and pitying her sorrow.\n\n\"Come! this is no way to be happy,\" she said, \"and no way to make\nfriends. Who'd care to know such a ragged little witch as you? And\nyou're dusty as a toad. Why don't you wash your face, and mend your\ngown, and let folks see you are good for something?\"\n\n\"O, I have tried!\" said Minnie, mournfully. \"I tried to sew a new gown\nout of elm leaves; but they were so tender they wilted and tore before I\ncould put them together. Then I picked some beautiful oak leaves, and\nthey were so tough they blunted my needle, and frayed the spider-webs I\nwas sewing with.\"\n\n\"O, well, come down in the grass, and see what we can do together.\"\n\nDown leaped Minnie, like a squirrel, and down dropped spider on her\nsilken thread. They ran through the grass together till they came to a\ndwarf-oak, from which Minnie picked the large leaves, while spider wove\nthem together with her curious web.\n\nMinnie seated herself on a mushroom, and watched her good-natured friend\nat work. Spider wove her threads back and forth, till the seams appeared\nto be laced together with silvery, silken cords. She finished each with\nsilver tassels; and, when Minnie had dressed in her handsome gown, wove\na scarf of silver-gauze to throw across her shoulders.\n\nThen Minnie twisted grass-blades together, as yellow-bird had taught\nher, and made a strong girdle for her waist, and tucked a rose leaf\nunder it for apron, and picked for bonnet a purple snap dragon, with a\ngolden frill inside.\n\nBut, alas, the happy, laughing look was gone from Minnie's eyes; and the\nrags and the little sun-burnt face looked out beneath all her finery!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX.\n\nSTORK.\n\n\nA few days after Minnie's escape from the pitcher-plant she heard the\nminnows telling each other about a dreadful creature, that had been\nwading in the brook, catching the fish in his wide bill, and gobbling\nthem down two or three at a time.\n\nShe thought it must be the stork, and that she would keep out of his\nway; but, when he really came at last, she couldn't help feeling how\nnice it would be to sit high and dry on his back while he waded up and\ndown the stream. So Minnie came out of her hiding-place, and asked stork\nif he remembered her.\n\n\"Don't I? It's all I have lingered here for--the hope of seeing my queer\nlittle woman again. My own home is far off, beside the blue ocean,\nwhere I can hear the pleasant music of the waves.\"\n\n\"How I should like to hear them!\" Minnie exclaimed. \"Do they make as\nloud a sound as the water of the brook?\"\n\n\"Not much louder when the weather is fair; but, in a storm, they roar\nlike thunder, and don't they throw dainty breakfasts upon the rocks for\nme, then!\"\n\n\"What! honey, and rose leaves, and berries?\"\n\n\"No; where should they come from? The waves bring good fat fish, and\nclams, and black lobster-claws, that get broken in the storm.\"\n\n\"O, dear, is that all?\"\n\n\"If you like it better, they bring shells, and pebbles white as eggs,\nand beautiful seaweeds gay as any garden-flower, and little red crabs,\nand curious star-fish. Come home with me, and I'll show what the waves\ncan do!\"\n\nMinnie was not sorry to leave the brook, which had become so unsafe for\nher; and, besides, you know she was always ready for a change. So,\nbegging the stork to bend his neck as near the ground as he could, she\nclambered upon his back. Then stork outspread his broad, strong\nwings, and up they flew, and on, on, on, I cannot tell how many miles,\ntill they reached the ocean-side.\n\n[Illustration: MINNIE'S RIDE.]\n\nMinnie had seen wide rivers and lakes before; but never anything equal\nto this mighty ocean, which lay beneath them like an enormous mirror, as\nthey flew,--like a great glittering floor of glass.\n\nOn one side it stretched far out--nothing but water--till it reached the\nsky; on the other, it was bordered by a beach of smooth, white sand,\nover which lay strewn the gay seaweeds, and pebbles, and shells, about\nwhich stork had told her.\n\nGlad to stand on her feet again, Minnie skipped along the shore,\nstooping often to admire some smooth, pearly shell, or glistening\npebble, or heap of shining bubbles thrown up by the waves, and changing\nlike opals in the sun.\n\nIt seemed as if the little waves were chasing her; as if they ran up the\nsmooth sand on purpose to kiss her feet; as if they were asking her to\naccept the pretty weeds and stones which they kept tossing on the\nbeach.\n\n\"O, stork, what a beautiful place it is! We will stay here as long as we\nlive!\" she said.\n\n\"I don't know about that. The beach is a good place after a storm; but\nwe can't dine on bubbles and pebbles, Minnie, so climb my back again,\nand I'll take you across to the rocks.\"\n\nA long, black ledge, against which the waves kept dashing, to turn white\nwith foam, and leap glittering into the air,--this was the place toward\nwhich stork now steered.\n\nThe little woman could not but tremble as she looked down upon all the\nrestless waves which stretched on every side as far as she could see. It\nwas a beautiful sight; but Minnie knew that, if she should fall, the\nocean would swallow her more easily than ever stork swallowed a minnow\nin the brook.\n\nThe rocks were wet, they found, and slippery; half covered with coarse\nseaweed, that was brown as leaves in winter, and did not look like any\ngrowing thing. But, selecting a higher ledge, which the sun had dried,\nstork asked Minnie to sit here and rest, while he went in search of\nfood.\n\nAt first she watched the beautiful glittering foam, which leaped so\nlightly into the air, and then rolled back from the stones, in scattered\ndrops, like showers of red pearls.\n\nThen a croak called Minnie's attention; and, looking across the rocks,\nshe saw stork almost choking himself with trying to swallow a fish too\nlarge for his throat. Down it went, at last; and now she watched how\ncautiously and silently stork crept from stone to stone, lifting his\nwings that he might easier walk on tip-toe with his clumsy feet.\nSuddenly down went his snaky neck, and, when it rose, another fish was\nwrithing in his bill.\n\nThe little girl was so absorbed in watching her friend at his work, that\nshe did not notice how night was falling, until a gust of cold sea-air\nmade a chill creep over her.\n\nThen, looking about, she found that the water had risen on every side,\nso as almost to cover the rocks on which she sat. Stars one by one were\ncoming out in the sky, and she called loudly for stork to take her back\nto the shore.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.\n\nTHE SEA-SHORE.\n\n\nMinnie did not call the stork a minute too soon. He had just caught\nsight of his mate, and, rather stupid with eating so hearty a supper,\nwas about to fly away, forgetting his new friend.\n\nHe did not tell her this, but treated her more kindly, perhaps, when he\nthought how near she came to being drowned by his neglect. For the tide,\nwhich rose every minute, would soon have swept her away.\n\nWhat should he find for Minnie's supper? She was not partial to raw\nfish. It was too dark now to look for checkerberries and violet buds.\nAh! he would find some snails, and she should pick them out from their\npretty white shells. They were sweet as smelts, he told her.\n\nBut, when Minnie came to look at them, it seemed to her like eating\nworms, or bugs; and, though stork assured her that in England he had\nseen some of the finest people eat these snails, she could not make up\nher mind to put one in her mouth.\n\nSo, a bright thought struck stork. Leaving Minnie on the beach, he\nseized a clam, rose high in the air, and let it fall with such force\nthat the shell broke; out dropped its contents, and the little girl was\nhungry enough to eat them with a relish.\n\nAnd, on their way home, stork stopped where there were birds' eggs in\nplenty. Minnie remembered yellow-bird's grief over the loss of his\nyoung, and could not bear to rob the nests at first. But hunger drove\nher to it afterwards.\n\nStork settled into his own quiet nest at last, and Minnie, creeping\nunder his wing to keep warm, slept soundly, lulled by the music of the\nwaves.\n\nThe next morning Minnie found the beach all over star-shaped tracks, too\nsmall for the stork's great feet. She found, soon, that these belonged\nto a curious little bird, that came in flocks. These skipped about the\nbeach, as if they were trying to dance, or learning to take their steps.\nThey were not larger than a robin, but had long legs and bills, so as to\nwade and catch fish among the waves.\n\nMinnie made friends with them, and offered to give them lessons in\ndancing, of which they seemed so fond; but they told her they had only\nlearned their droll steps from a habit of skipping away from waves when\nthe tide was coming in.\n\nStill, they allowed her to arrange them for a contra dance, and, though\nshe had some trouble in persuading part to wait while the others went\nthrough their figure, Minnie laughed till she was tired, with the funny\nsight they made.\n\nAs the tide left the beach, Minnie found plenty of rocks, and all along\nthe crevices of the rock were snails, such as stork had brought her the\nnight before; and, on the sides, barnacles, a kind of fish that, except\nit is white and hard, looks like some plant growing. In hollows, where\nthere were pools of water, she saw purple mussels, their shells half\nopen that they might enjoy the sun.\n\nThen the seaweeds were different from anything she had ever seen. They\nwere shaped like trees,--apple-trees, or willows, or elms; but were of\nthe gayest colors you can think,--bright red, pink, purple, yellow,\ngreen, and some were jet black, and pretty shades of brown. Some had\nfruit on them,--dark yellow berries, or apples, with a rosy side like\nany on our trees, only small as the head of a pin. The tallest of the\ntrees were not higher than the length of your hand. It was like a little\nfairy forest.\n\nThen Minnie found, to her surprise, that the snails, which seemed so\nfastened into the rocks by their shell, moved, shell and all. She found\nthem travelling in every direction,--but O, so slowly! It made her ache\nto see them. She could run across the beach a dozen times before a snail\nhad moved an inch.\n\nSometimes she took them in her hands and carried them to the pool they\nwere trying to reach; but they always said it made them dizzy and\nconfused to fly along so fast, and they preferred their own slow way.\n\nSometimes the snails ran races with each other. That was a droll thing\nto watch, for they all travelled as slowly, it seemed to Minnie, as the\nminute-hand on the clock in her father's office. They would start\ntogether, large snails and little ones, white snails and yellow, brown\nand black, striped, spotted, shaded, dragging their houses after them.\nThere was a pretty little fellow, with a shell so bright it looked like\ngold; he almost always won the race.\n\nOne day Minnie picked up a beautiful purple mussel-shell, lined with\npearl, and with a ledge of pearl inside, that served her for a seat. She\nlaunched this on the waves, and they bore her out to sea, where she\ndrifted on without a fear, she knew how to swim so well, in case her\nboat upset; and then the beach birds were always ready to sail alongside\nof her little bark, and they could carry tidings home, should any harm\nbefall her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII.\n\nSTORM AND CALM.\n\n\nMinnie was very happy at the shore. A stranger stork did come one day,\nand, mistaking her for a fish, suddenly snatch her from her boat; but\nshe held his bill so fast that he was glad to drop her on the beach. And\nat dark she was sorely afraid of the lobsters that crawled about the\nrocks, blindly stretching their black claws for food; but they had never\nharmed her yet, and, on the whole, the tiny woman thought she was having\na beautiful time.\n\nShe loved to chase the little dimpling waves; she was never tired of\nwatching the flash of sunlight on the water by day, and at evening the\nsweet path of moonlight, that stretched so far, seemed like a path to\nher home,--if only she dared to trust herself on the waves!\n\nThen all the changing colors of the water, and the pretty wreaths of\nfoam, delighted her. She built a house, for herself, of such white\npebbles and shells that it looked like a little marble palace. And the\ntables and seats inside, and the bed, were all beautiful\nmother-of-pearl.\n\nBut a storm came one day, and washed away her house, and dashed the\nwaves so high upon the beach, that Minnie fled for her life.\n\nIt happened a spruce-tree stood not far from the shore; so she scrambled\nup into its branches, both to be sheltered from, and to watch, the\nstorm.\n\nIt was awful to see the great waves rise and beat against the beach, as\nif they meant to wash the whole world away, and to hear the grating of\nthe stones they clashed together, and see the great mats of seaweed they\ntore from the rocks, and the shells they swept out of their crevices,\nand tossed on the shore in heaps.\n\nAnd the water kept rising, and rising, till it covered the beach, and\ncame nearer and nearer, until it reached the roots of the very tree into\nwhich Minnie had climbed. It had been hard enough to bear the beating\nof the branches in the wind, but now must she be drowned, so far from\nher home, and no one ever dream what had become of her?\n\n[Illustration: MINNIE AT HOME.]\n\nMinnie screamed with fright, and then, through the storm, she seemed to\nhear a low song, such as her mother used to sing, and, instead of the\nrough spruce branches, it seemed as if her mother's arms were about her\nnow.\n\nShe opened her eyes in wonder. Could it be that the soft hand she had\nmissed so long was stroking her curls once more? that the dear voice she\nhad never thought to hear again was singing soft lullabies over her?\nthat Allie was looking in her face, and Frank was holding her pale hand\nin his?\n\nYes, and, stranger still, her mother and Franky declared that they had\nbeen with her all the while. On that first day of my story, when the\nsquirrel came,--it seemed years ago to Minnie, now,--she had fallen from\nthe fence, and bruised her head, and had been sick with a fever ever\nsince, and they thought she must have dreamed these marvellous things.\n\nCertain it was that, when the little girl looked in the glass, she found\nherself large as ever, though pale and very thin. Her gown, too, was\nmade of muslin, instead of forest leaves; and, instead of being perched\non a pine-bough, here she stood in her own father's home!\n\nAnd here she resolved to stay and be content. For, whether awake or in a\nfever-dream, Minnie had learned this, that, let it be large or small,\nthere is, in all this great wide world, no place so safe and pleasant as\nour home. And this, besides, that the handsomest, kindest, gayest among\nstrangers, will never make up for the loss of our own friends, the\nparents that have watched over us ever since we were born, the brothers\nand sisters that have played by the same fireside, and under the same\ngreen trees.\n\nDear children, when you are older, you will find that all the people in\nthis world have strayed, like Minnie; that they wander about, making\nacquaintance with many creatures, but still unsatisfied; that they\nencounter storms, and suffer weariness and loneliness, and long for\nthose who dwell in the far-off home.\n\nYes, and some morning we all shall wake in our Father's house, and find\nabout us the blessed voices and dear forms of those we have loved; and\nthen it will be like a dream that we seemed to lose them once.\n\nThat home is on the other side of the stars. But Frank and Minnie are\nyoung yet, and expect to find it here. They are young, and cannot\nbelieve that their senses may be mistaken, and that all Minnie's curious\nchanges happened in a dream. Many an afternoon they still spend in\nlooking for the wondrous weed that will make them understand the\nlanguage of birds, and squirrels, and butterflies.\n\nAnd, to tell you the truth, I more than half believe they will find it\nyet.\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Minnie; or, The Little Woman: A Fairy Story","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":25468}