When the hot forenoon's work was done, and the dinner dishes put away, Randy and Prue started for the brook, Randy carrying the wonderful book very carefully, and little Prue skipping along beside her. Across the fields, behind the barn, into a bit of woodland went the children, and there they found the brook, calm and placid in one place, rippling and chattering in another. "Hark! hear it talk," said Randy, but practical little Prue said, "It only says 'wobble, wobble, wobble,' as it goes over the stones, and I don't call that talking."

"Well, I do," said Randy, "and I always wonder what it says."

"How'll you find out?" said Prue.

"Oh, Prue!" said Randy, "what makes you ask questions that n.o.body could answer?"

"But somebody could," said the child; "if it really says anything, somebody, somewhere, would know what it means, now wouldn't they, Randy?"

"I do believe there is some one who could understand it." Randy spoke so earnestly that Prue stopped throwing pebbles at the water-spiders and throwing her arms around Randy, she said, "Oh, Randy! don't look that way. When your eyes get big, and you just think and think, it makes me lonesome. Do begin to read the fairy stories."

So Randy roused herself from her dream about the brook, and sat down, with Prue close beside her, on a rough plank which spanned the tiny stream. There, with the book upon her lap, and one arm around her little sister, she read the tales of wonder and enchantment, while the sunlight, sifting through the leaves, touched her hair and made a halo around the sweet face. Parts of the stories were too much for little Prue to understand, but such of them as her small brain could take in delighted her.

Randy read very well, although she had had but little schooling, and her delight in the splendor which the stories described gave added expression to her reading, and delighted little Prue exclaimed, "Oh, Randy, you make it seem as if it was true!"

Randy laughed, well pleased with the compliment, and continued reading: "'And as soon as she heard the witch's voice, she unbound her tresses.'"

"What's 'tresses'?" interrupted Prue.

"Why, hair," explained Randy.

"Then, why didn't they say 'hair'?" said the child.

"Tresses sounds nicer," answered Randy.

"I don't know," said Prue, doubtfully.

"Well, I do," said Randy. "If my hair was long, I'd enough rather have it called tresses."

"I'll call it tresses," said obliging little Prue, "even if it isn't very long. Now, go on, Randy."

So Randy continued: "'She unbound her tresses, and they fell down twenty ells, and the witch mounted up by them.'"

"Oh, my, my!" interrupted Prue, "your hair's longer'n that!"

"Longer than what?" said the astonished Randy.

"Twenty ells," said Prue. "When you showed me the other day how to print a L, it wasn't very big. Would twenty of 'em be so very much? Your hair is most down to your waist, when I stretch the ends out so they don't curl."

"O you funny child!" said Randy, half laughing, half impatient. "It doesn't mean that kind of ell. What's the use of reading the stories?

You ask so many questions, I don't believe you half hear them."

"Oh, I do truly want to hear the stories, and if you'll only read, I won't ask a question, 'less it's something I can't make out."

Again Randy found the place, and for some time the story went on without interruption. Once they paused to see the picture of the lovely girl in the tower, then Randy went on:-

"'The king's son wished to ascend to her, and looked for a door in the tower, but he could not find one. So he rode home, but the song which she had sung had touched his heart so much that he went every day to the forest and listened to it. As he thus stood one day behind a tree, he saw the witch come up and heard her call out:-

"'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair.'

"'Then Rapunzel let down her tresses, and the witch mounted up.'"

"Oh, Randy!" cried Prue, excitedly, "why, didn't it 'most pull her head off?"

Randy laughed. "O Prue, Prue!" she said, "I do believe you think of the funniest questions to ask."

"But, Randy, do you b'lieve it didn't pull like everything?" And Prue's eyes were round with wonder.

"Oh!" said Randy, "don't you know that father said we wouldn't be expected to believe the stories, only just enjoy them?" But the little girl looked bewildered; so, closing the book, Randy sought other means to amuse her. "Let's play this is a beautiful bridge, this plank we're sitting on, and this brook, a great big river," said Randy, "and we're princesses waiting for a prince to come and save us-I mean rescue us,"

she corrected.

Again little Prue showed her lack of imagination. "Save us from what?"

said she.

"Oh, dragons that live in this big, roaring river."

"It don't roar much," said Prue, doubtfully; "but," she added, "we can play it does."

Thus encouraged, Randy went on, giving her fancy full play. "And that pretty green branch overhead, with sun on the leaves, that's an arch of flowers such as the princess rode under in another story."

That was too much for Prue. "But, Randy!" she exclaimed, "there isn't a blossom on it. If we were princesses, Randy, I could love you just the same, couldn't I?" questioned Prue, looking up at her sister with eager eyes.

"Of course you could," said Randy, giving Prue a hug, who thus a.s.sured began to hum a little tune, swinging her legs to keep time with her singing. They made a pretty picture, Randy with her arm still about the little sister, Prue nestling as close as possible to Randy, and in the brook below a reflection showing the two children. Randy was looking off as if for the coming of the prince, while little Prue, becoming drowsy, laid her head against her sister.

Suddenly Prue started: "S'pose that's the prince?" said she, as a low, merry whistle sounded through the woods. Randy looked toward the opening, then her laugh rang out. "Oh, Prue," said she, "it's 'Bijah Bowstock, the deacon's hired man, going after the cows. Just look at him!" she added. And Prue looked.

Little enough like the prince in the fairy book looked he! An old straw hat upon the back of his head, a blue "jumper," and a pair of overalls tucked into his boots, completed his costume. He did not see Randy and Prue as he pa.s.sed through the woods to a path far beyond the brook, whisking off the blossoms with his switch as he went along.

"His clothes wasn't the kind the prince wore in the picture, was they, Randy?" said Prue, when 'Bijah was out of sight. "In the picture in the fairy book they wear such long, long stockings way over their knees, and hats with feathers in them, and everything," said Prue, intending thus to supply all the details of costume which she might possibly have omitted.

Randy made no answer. Little Prue felt as many a grown person does, that the clothes made the man; but Randy, thoughtful Randy, felt that, given all the fine raiment, 'Bijah never could have even _looked_ the prince.

Little Prue edged her way along the plank on which they sat, and at last succeeded in slipping off from the end of the board down to the edge of the brook. There she found bits of bark which she freighted with moss, and then floated them down the tiny stream.

The little crafts, aided by a gentle push, floated out into a placid little pool just under Randy's feet. For an instant they paused, wavered, then turning about they flew over the miniature rapids, made there by three small stones below the surface, then sailed around a bend in the brook and disappeared behind a clump of brakes growing at the foot of an alder.

Sometimes the tiny boats foundered, and the pa.s.sengers were tipped out into the stream, but little Prue found other bits of bark for the boats and gaily loaded them with moss for more pa.s.sengers.

"Look, Randy! Look!" screamed Prue, "there's a fine new boat just under your feet. The gray moss is mens, and the moss with the red tops is womens. The red is their bonnets. Randy, Randy! why don't you hear me when I'm close to you?"

Randy shook herself and sat upright, laughing. "I did hear you," she said, "only I didn't think to answer. I guess I was dreaming."

"Well, don't dream in the daytime!" said Prue; "I've sent lots and lots of pretty boats down the stream, and I kept telling you to look, and now I don't believe you've seen one of them."

"Oh, yes, I have," said Randy, "only I was so busy thinking that I didn't say anything about them. Come, we'll sail a few boats together, and then I guess we'd better go home."

Prue was delighted, and to reward Randy for agreeing to play with her, she hunted with all her might for finer pieces of bark and choicer bits of moss, and gay indeed was the little fleet with its red-capped crew and pa.s.sengers. Prue wandered off to find even finer mosses, and Randy was trying to capture a big water-spider for a pa.s.senger for a piece of birch bark, when Prue came rushing down the path, crying, "Look, Randy!

Look! Here's old Mr. Plimpkins to sail in one of our boats."