Snow-White or, The House in the Wood. Richards Laura Elizabeth Howe

stems. Then came alders, stubby and thick, with last year's berries still clinging here and there to the black twigs. Then, somehow, all at once there began to be trees along by the river side. The child had been so absorbed in making sparkles and shouting at them, she had forgotten the banks for awhile; now, when she looked up, there was no more meadow-rue. Trees came crowding down to the water's edge; trees were all about her, ranks upon ranks of them; wherever she looked, she saw only green rustling tents and waving curtains.

      "I am in a woods!" said the child. She laughed aloud at the idea, and looked round again, full of joy and wonder. It was pretty enough, surely. The woods were not so thick but that sunbeams could find their way down through the branches, dappling the green gloom with fairy gold. Here and there the gold lay on the river, too, and that was a wonderful thing, handfuls of gold and diamonds flung down from the sky, shimmering and sparkling on a crystal floor; but in other places the water slept still and black in the shadow, only broken where a stone humped itself out, shining and mossy, with the silver breaking over it and running down with cheerful babblings into the soft blackness below.

      By and by there was a stone so big that its top stood out dry and brown above the water. It was a flat top, and the child sat down on it, and gathered her petticoats about her, and let her feet rest in the cool flowing. That was a great pleasure, to be really part of the brook, or of the rock. She laughed aloud, suddenly, and kicked a little; till the bright drops flew over her head; then she began to sing and talk, both together.

      "And I comed away,

      And I runned away,

      And I said I thought I did not

      Want to stay!

      "Well, and if Miss Tyler won't be surprised! she will say 'Oh, dear me! where is that child?' and then she will look everywhere, and everywhere, and everywhere, and I won't be nowhere!" She broke out into a funny little bubbling laugh, and the brook laughed in almost exactly the same way, so that the child nodded at it, and kicked up the sparkles again, to show her appreciation.

      "And then they will send out all over the village, and everybody will say, 'Oh, yes, we seed that child. We seed her going into the store, and we seed her going into the house, and we seed her running about all over the place.' Yes! but, nobody seed me run, and nobody seed me go, and nobody don't know nothing, and nothing don't nobody know!" and she bubbled again. This time a green frog came up out of the water and looked at her, and said "Croak," in an inquisitive tone.

      "Why did I?" said the child, looking at him sidewise. "Well, if I tell, won't you tell anybody, never no more? honest Injun? Well, then, I won't tell you! I don't tell things to frogs!" She splashed a great splash, and the frog departed in anger.

      "Huh!" said the child. "He was noffin but an old frog. He wasn't a fairy; though there was the Frog Prince, you know." She frowned thoughtfully, but soon shook her head. "No, that wasn't him, I'm sure it wasn't. He'd have had gold spots on his green, and this frog hadn't a single one, he hadn't. He wasn't a prince; I'd know a frog that was a prince, minute I seed him, I 'spect. And he'd say:

      "'King's daughter youngest, open the door!'

      "And then I would, and he would come in, and – and – I'd put him in Miss Tyler's plate, and wouldn't she yellup and jump? and Mamma – "

      Here the child suddenly looked grave. "Mamma!" she repeated, "Mamma. Well, she went away and left me first, and that was how it was. When you leave this kinds of child alone, it runs away, that's what it does; and Miss Tylers isn't any kind of persons to leave this kinds of child wiz, anyhow, and so I told them at first.

      "And I comed away,

      And I runned away,

      And I said I thought I did not

      Want to stay!

      And they teared their hair,

      And they made despair,

      And – and —

      And I said I thought perhaps I did not care!

      "That's a long one. When I come to some fairies I'll make more. When I am big, I'll talk that way all the time, wiz poetry in it."

      She was silent for a few minutes, watching the bubbles that came sailing down the stream. Most of the way they were clear like glass, with a little rim of foam where they joined on, she thought; but when they came to a certain place, where a shaft of yellow light came down and made sparkles on the water, every bubble turned rainbow colour, most beautiful. Only, some of them would go the wrong way, over into the shadow.

      "Hi!" she shouted to them. "Come over here and be rainbows! you are a stupid, you are! If I was a bubble, I would know enough to come to the right place, and be a rainbow, yes, I would. I'll kick you, old bubble, if you go there!" Stretching out her foot, she stretched it a little too far, and sat down in the stream with a souse. She scrambled out hastily, but this time on the bank. She had had enough of the brook, and was red with anger. "You needn't have your old stones so slippery!" she said. "I needn't have sat on your old stone, anyhow, but I thought it might be pleased. And my feet was cold, and I won't stay there any more, not a single minute, so you can make all the noise you want to, and noffin but frogs will stay in you, and not prince frogs One Bit, only just common ones, so now!"

      She shook her head at the brook, and turned away. Then she turned back again, and her baby forehead clouded.

      "See here!" said the child. "I 'spect I'm lost."

      There seemed no doubt about that. There was no sign of a path anywhere. The still trees came crowding down to the water's edge, sometimes leaning far over, so that their drooping branches met across the still pools. On every side were green arcades, long reaches of shimmering leaves, cool deeps of fern; nothing else. The child had never known fear, and it did not come to her now. She reflected for a moment; then her brow cleared. "I must find a House in the Wood!" she announced to the brook. She spoke with decision, and cheerfulness reigned in her mind. Of course there was a house somewhere; there always was, in every wood. Sometimes two children lived in it, and the brother was a white fawn all day, and turned into a boy at night; that would be fun! and sometimes it was an old woman – oh, dear, yes, but sometimes that old woman was a witch, and put you in a chicken-coop, and ate you up when you were fat. Yes; but you would know that house, because it was all made of candy and pancakes and things, and you could just run round behind it, and pull off some pancakes from the shed, p'r'aps, and then run away as fast as ever you could, and old womans couldn't run half so fast as children, and so! But the best house, on the whole, would be the Dwarf House. Yes, that was the one to look for. The house where seven dwarfs lived, and they had the table all ready set when you came, and you took a little out of one bowl, and a little out of another cup; and then they came in and found you asleep, and said, "Who is this sweet maiden?" and then you stayed and cooked for them, just like Snow-white, and – and – it was just lovely!

      "Well, I wish it would be pretty soon!" said the child. "I'm pretty hungry, I 'spect p'raps."

      She was a brave child; she was hungry, and her legs and feet ached; but she pushed on cheerfully, sometimes talking and singing, sometimes silent, making her way through the tangle of ferns and hanging branches; following the brook, because there was a little boy in the newspaper that her papa read, and he got lost, and just he followed the brook, and it brought him right along to where there were people, and he had blackberries all the way. She looked for blackberries, but they are hard to find in early May, except in the Fairy Books. There, as the child knew very well, you had only to go to the right place and take a broom and brush away the snow, and there you found strawberries, the finest that ever were seen, to take home to your sick sister. It was true that you had to be very good and polite to the proper old woman, or else you would never find the strawberries; but the child would be polite, she truly would. She would sweep the old woman's house, and give her half her own bread – only she had no bread! Here a great pang of emptiness smote the child; she felt that there was a sob about somewhere, waiting to get into her throat. It should not come in; she shook her head, and pressed on. It was all right; God was close by, anyhow, and he had to take care of children, because he said he would. So it was all right, only —

      Suddenly the child stopped; for it