It happened that, in seeking food for Minnie, the bird found something of which he was especially fond himself; so, after eating his fill, he went humming across the meadow, never thinking again of the friend he had promised to help.

Very impatiently the little girl expected him every moment, until an hour had pa.s.sed, and still she waited, hungry and alone.

Then came a great flapping of wings overhead, and a rustling such as she had once heard when a hawk flew into her father's poultry-yard. He had eaten the white chicken that she called her own, and it was as large as she was now. Suppose he should eat her!

The rush of wings came nearer, and the bird, whatever his name might be, alighted close beside Minnie, who ventured to peep over the edge of her pitcher, and beheld a curious, tall, awkward creature, such as she had never seen before in her life.

She coughed to attract his attention, and he turned toward her a bill as long as her own arm was once, and began to stalk about on legs longer, even, than his bill, and that looked like a pair of stilts.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

NARROW ESCAPES.

"It's a pleasant morning for a walk," Minnie ventured to say.

Her visitor answered with a croak so rough that she couldn't tell whether he agreed with her or not. But, taking a long step, the stork came nearer, and looked directly down into Minnie's prison, and upon the little, tired, mournful, frightened face.

"Pray, don't hurt me! I have lost my way, and fallen into this dreadful place."

"Why do you stay here, if it is not pleasant?"

"O, I cannot climb out, I'm so small; and the sides are so slippery, and all these thorns so rough!"

Then, without waiting to be asked, the stork broke the leaf-stem, and, turning it upside down, shook Minnie out into the gra.s.s.

It was so good to stretch herself in the pleasant sunshine, that Minnie folded her hands, and lay there quietly as if she was asleep, or dead.

The stork travelled around her on his stilts, and Minnie heard him say, "In all my flying, I never came across such an odd little creature before; it looks like a woman, yet isn't larger than a bird. Its feathers are like a humming-bird's, and yet they are pretty well worn out. I wonder how it happens!"

With this he began to poke and pull at her cloak; finally, off it came, and stork held it up in the sun for examination. Then he eyed the little silk ap.r.o.n her mother had made, and twitched it by one corner, till Minnie began to think he would eat her piece by piece.

So, the first time he turned his head away, she sprang to her feet, and, without once looking behind, ran, leaped the fences and the fallen boughs, and, reaching her home by the brook-side, hid under the shadow of a stone.

And high above her, she watched the stork beating the air with his heavy wings, and sailing on out of sight.

After eating some savory roots, which the mouse had taught her how to find, and taking a berry or two for dessert, Minnie jumped into the brook, which looked warm and tempting as it rippled through the sunshine.

She could swim as swiftly as any fish, and was so very fond of the sport that she soon forgot her weariness. Laughing and shouting, she started in chase of a swarm of little minnows, whose silvery sides shone like moonbeams when they darted across the brook.

Minnie kept gaining ground, and thought, at last, that she could lay her hand upon the minnows, crowded all together as they swam; but, lo! at the first touch, like so many bubbles of quicksilver, they scattered far and wide. Some shot before her, some dodged behind her back, some hid their silly noses under stones and weeds, thinking, if only their eyes were out of sight, that n.o.body else could see them.

Of these last, Minnie caught several; but they slipped through her fingers again before she could be certain that she had them there. She might as well have tried to hold one of the ripples of the brook.

Now that the b.u.t.terflies had forsaken her, Minnie found it lonely in the meadow, and spent most of her time by the stream. When it was low she would trip over the wet, rough stones in its bed so fast that the dragon-flies, with all their wings, could hardly keep pace with her.

And, when the little stream was full to its brim, she would nestle inside of a water-lily, and float for hours, half asleep, watching the sunny ripples pa.s.s. In more restless moods, she would climb tall bulrushes, or swing among the long, ribbon-like iris leaves. There was no end to the ways she had of amusing herself.

But one day, when she was swinging, a boy mistook her for a b.u.t.terfly, and, springing among the iris-leaves, had almost caught her in his hat.

Another day, as she was floating in the brook, an angler came, and threw a pretty, gay-winged fly into the water. When Minnie seized this, a sharp hook pierced her hand, and, the next thing she knew, she was lifted high in the air on the fisherman's line! In an instant she freed herself from the hook, and fell back into the water; but it was many days before the wound stopped smarting, and many more before it healed.

Still another time, Minnie found the brook covered with mosquitoes; the fields were parched with the August sun; and the road, where all the birds had gone to chat with the b.u.t.terflies, was hot and dusty. So the little girl nestled under some cool violet leaves. In the woods violets blossom all the year round, you know, not plentifully as in spring, but here and there you find a cl.u.s.ter in bloom.

Such an one Minnie found, and, when she stretched herself in the grateful shade of its leaves, the sweet flowers looked down at her like the blue eyes of her mother, and the wind, that was whispering through the long, fine gra.s.s, seemed her dear lullaby.

But, as she leaned her head on the moss at the violet roots, and thought of home, there came a sudden jar, and the next moment she was rolling in a heap of dusty earth, and vainly striving to free herself, as you have seen ants when their nest was broken open.

A man was digging up the sod of violets to plant on the grave of his little child that was dead. Minnie feared that, if he detected her, he would stick her on a pin, as some new kind of b.u.t.terfly, for his cabinet. She hardly dared breathe until his work was finished, and the man had gone away.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE LITTLE SEAMSTRESS.

All dusty and ragged, Minnie stood wondering whither she should turn next, and what would become of her.

No place seemed safe, no friends stood by her long; her garments were torn to fringes, and the hot sun pelted down its rays upon her so that she was faint.

She had barely strength to climb a tall pine-tree near, in whose boughs she had often swung through the long afternoons. But that was in happier days. The sighing of the wind among the branches, which used to be such pleasant music, was so mournful now that it filled Minnie's eyes with tears. It seemed as if a hundred soft, sad voices were calling, just as Minnie's heart called, for her mother to come and fold her in her own dear arms once more, and comfort her, and forgive her, and take her home, never, never to wander or be disobedient again.

"Halloa!" said a voice. "What's the matter this time? Have you lost your fine cloak, or has some one else grown tired of my little woman, and sent her off to starve?"

"Pray, squirrel, don't tease me, now. I'm so homesick, and so poor, and tired, and discouraged, that it seems to me I shall die."

"That's what I said you'd come to, when you left us; but I'm your friend, Minnie, though I am such a rude fellow, and I don't mean you any harm. Good-by!"

Master Squirrel was frisking off, when Minnie called, "Wait, wait!

Couldn't you--"

"O, you mustn't ask any favors. I'm full of business and care. Since we parted I have found a mate; and have a nest of my own, and lots of little ones. Call and see us!"

He had hardly gone, when Mrs. Yellow-bird came in sight. "My dear friend," Minnie began.

"A pretty friend!" she interrupted; "think of the trouble you've caused me!"

"How?"

"Ah, you can pretend not to know; but I am sure Master Squirrel has told you what he did, in spite, because I helped carry the humming-bird home for you, one day, and tipped him out of the car. You never even came to say you were sorry."

"How could I? I do not even know what the mischief was."

"He upset my nest, and killed all my pretty little birds!" And she poured forth a song that seemed to say, "All my little ones, all my pretty birds gone! I can never be happy again!"