Children's Book Classics - Kate Douglas Wiggin Edition: 11 Novels & 120+ Short Stories for Children. Kate Douglas Wiggin

we ever come to stay in this horrible place!’

      ‘You must not blame the place, dear; we thought it the happiest in the world this morning. Here we are by the upper pool, and the path stops. Which way had we better go?’

      ‘I’ve been here before to-day,’ said Bell; ‘we might follow the trail I made. But where is my string? Light a match, Geoff, please.’

      ‘What string? What do you mean?’

      ‘Why, I found a beautiful spot this morning, and, fearing I shouldn’t remember the way again, I took out my ball of twine and dropped a white line all the way back, like Ariadne; but I don’t see it. Where can it have disappeared—unless Jack or Phil took it to tease me?’

      ‘Oh no; I’ve been with them all day. Perhaps a snake has swallowed it. Come.’

      But a bright idea had popped into Bell’s head. ‘I want to go that way, Geoff, dear; it’s as good as any other, and there are flowers just the other side, in an open, sunny place; perhaps he found them.’

      ‘All right; let’s go ahead.’

      ‘The trouble is, I don’t know which way to go. Here is the rock; I remember it was a spotted one, with tall ferns growing beside it. Now I went—let me see—this way,’ and they both plunged into the thick brush.

      ‘Bell, Bell, this is utter nonsense!’ cried Geoff. ‘No child could crawl through this tangle.’

      ‘Dicky could crawl through anything in this universe, if it was the wrong thing; he isn’t afraid of beast, bird, or fish, and he positively enjoys getting scratched,’ said Bell.

      Meanwhile, what had become of this small hero, and what was he doing? He was last seen in the hammock, playing with the long-suffering terrier, Lubin, who was making believe go to sleep. It proved to be entirely a make-believe; for, at the first loosening of Dicky’s strangling hold upon his throat, he tumbled out of the hammock and darted into the woods. Dicky followed, but Lubin was fleet of foot, and it was a desperate and exciting race for full ten minutes.

      At length, as Lubin heard his little master’s gleeful laugh, he realised that his anger was a thing of the past; consequently, he wheeled about and ran into Dicky’s outstretched arms, licking his face and hands exuberantly in the joy of complete forgiveness.

      By this time the voice of conscience in Dicky’s soul—and it was a very, very still, small one on all occasions—was entirely silenced. He strayed into a sunny spot, and picked flowers enough to trim his little sailor hat, probably divining that this was what lost children in Sunday-school books always did, and it would be dishonourable not to keep up the superstition. Then he built a fine, strong dam of stones across the brook, wading to and fro without the bother of taking off his shoes and stockings, and filled his hat with rocks and sunk it to the bottom for a wharf, keeping his hat-band to tie an unhappy frog to a bit of bark, and setting him afloat as the captain of a slave-ship. When, at length, the struggling creature freed himself from his bonds and leaped into the pool, Dicky played that he was a drowning child, and threw Lubin into the water to rescue him.

      In these merry antics the hours flew by unnoticed; he had never been happier in his life, and it flashed through his mind that if he were left entirely to himself he should always be good.

      ‘Here I’ve been a whole day offul good by my lone self; haven’t said one notty word or did one notty fing, nor gotted scolded a singul wunst, did I, Lubin? I guess we better live here; bettent we, Lubin? And ven we wunt git stuck inter bed fur wettin’ our feets little teenty mites of wet ev’ry singul night all the livelong days, will we, Lubin?’

      But this was a long period of reflection for Master Dicky, and he capered on, farther and farther, the water sozzling frightfully in his little copper-toed boots. At length he sat down on a stone to rest himself, and, glancing aimlessly about, his eyes fell on a white string, which he grasped with alacrity, pulling its end from beneath the stone on which he sat.

      ‘Luby Winship, the anjulls gaved me this string fur ter make an offul splendid tight harness for you, little Luby; and you can drag big heavy stones. Won’t that be nice?’

      Lubin looked doubtful, and wagged his tail dissentingly, as much as to say that his ideas of angel ministrations were a trifle different.

      But there was no end to the string! How very, very curious! Dicky wound and wound and crept and crept along, until he was thoroughly tired but thoroughly determined to see it through; and Lubin, meanwhile, had seized the first convenient moment, after the mention of the harness, to retire to the camp.

      At length, oh joy! the tired and torn little man, following carefully the leading-string, issued from the scratching bushes into a clean, beautiful, round place, with a great restful-looking stump in the centre, and round its base a small forest of snowy toadstools. What could be a lovelier surprise! Dicky clapped his hands in glee as he looked at them, and thought of a little verse of poetry which Bell had taught him:

      ‘Some fairy umbrellas came up to-day

       Under the elm-tree, just over the way,

       And as we have had a shower of rain,

       The reason they came is made very plain:

       To-night is the woodland fairies’ ball,

       And drops from the elm-tree might on them fall,

       So little umbrellas wait for them here,

       And under their shelter they’ll dance without fear.

       Take care where you step, nor crush them, I pray,

       For fear you will frighten the fairies away.’

      ‘Oh!’ thought Dicky, in a trance of delight, ‘now I shall go to the fairies’ ball, and see ’em dance under the cunning little teenty umberells; and wunt they be mad at home when nobuddy can’t see ’em but just only me! And then if that potry is a big whopper, like that there uvver one—’laddin-lamp story of Bell’s—I’ll just pick evry white toadstool for my papa’s Sunday dinner, and she sha’n’t never see a singul fairy dance.’

      But he waited very patiently for a long, long time that seemed like years, for Lubin had disappeared; and all at once it grew so dark in this thickly-wooded place that Dicky’s courage oozed out in a single moment, without any previous warnings as to its intention. The toadstools looked like the ghosts of little past-and-gone fairy umbrellas in the darkness, and not a single fairy couple came to waltz under their snowy canopies, or exchange a furtive kiss beneath their friendly shadows.

      Dicky thought the situation exceedingly gloomy, and, without knowing it, followed the example of many older people, who, on being deserted by man, experienced their first desire to find favour with God. He was not in the least degree a saintly child, but he felt instinctively that this was the proper time for prayer; and not knowing anything appropriate to the occasion, he repeated over and over again the time-worn plaint of childhood:—

      ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,

       I pray the Lord my soul to keep;

       If I should die before I wake,

       I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.’

      Like older mortals of feeble faith, he looked for an immediate and practical answer, in the shape, perhaps, of his mother, with his little night-gown and bowl of bread and milk.

      ‘My sakes alive!’ he grumbled between his sobs, ‘they’re the meanest fings I ever saw. How long do they s’pose I’m goin’ to wait for ’em in this dark? When the bears have et me up in teenty snips, then they’ll be saterfied, I guess, and wisht they’d tookened gooder care of me—a little speck of a boy, lefted out in this dark, bear-y place, all by his lone self. O—oo—oo—oh!’ and he wound up with a murderous yell, which had never failed before to bring the whole family to his side.

      His former prayer seeming to be in vain, he found a soft place, brushed it as clean as possible, and with difficulty bending his little stiff, scratched body into a kneeling position, he prayed his nightly postscript to