The child had grown tired of the road. At first it had been delightful to patter along in the soft white dust, leaving the print of her feet so clear behind her. She might be a hundred little girls, she thought, instead of one. The prints reached away back, as far as she could see, hundreds and hundreds of little trotty feet, each with its toes marked as plain as if you drew them with a pencil. And the dust felt soft and smooth, and when you put your foot down it went up puff in the air, and made little clouds; only when it got in your throat it made you cough and sneeze, and it was gritty in your eyes, too. By and by, as I said, she grew tired of this, and it was a new joy to see the little river that came running along just then.

That was what the child sang, for she had a way of singing when she was alone. Without hesitating, she plumped into the river, and the water was cool and delicious to her hot little toes. She walked along, holding her petticoats high, though there was no need of that, as they were short enough before; splashing just enough to make silver sparkles at every step. The river did not seem to grow deeper; it was just precisely made to wade in, the child thought. For some way the banks were fringed with meadow-rue, and she had to stop every little while to admire the fluffy white blossoms, and the slender, graceful 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.

"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.

"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 was all right. She had found the House in the Wood.

Standing breast-high in ferns, she looked away from the brook; and there was a break in the trees, and beyond the break a space of sunny green, with a huge tree in the middle; and on the farther side the house itself. Gray and silent; leaning against a great rock-face behind it; the door shut, but the windows standing wide open; the roof all green and blossoming, like a queer little garden place,—there it was, exactly the way it was in the Fairy Books. The child saw at once that there was no danger of cannibal old women here. This house was not made of pancakes, and the windows were not barley sugar at all, but plain glass. No, this was the house of the Seven Dwarfs; and she was really in a fairy story, and she was going to have the best time she had ever had in her life.

The child stood quiet for a few minutes, looking in pure delight. Perhaps one of the dwarfs would come out. She thought she might feel a little shy if one were to come out just this very minute. Then she remembered that they must all be out at work in the forest, for they always were, and they did not come back till night.

"Well, I can't wait!" she said, decidedly. "First place, Snow-white didn't, not a minute she didn't wait. And besides, I'm too hungry, and I s'pose everything is ready and waiting inside, and so I'll go."

She advanced boldly across the green, but paused again at the door. No sound came from the house. The creepers waved on the roof, the birds made an amazed and amazing chatter in the great buttonwood-tree; but that was all. The child pushed the door, the latch yielded, and the door swung slowly open. Two steps, and she stood inside.

Even the very bravest child may be excused for feeling a little strange in such a house as this. She felt her heart beating in her ears, and her throat was dry; but as she looked about her, everything was so perfectly right that her sense of fitness asserted itself once more, and she was content and glad. The room in which she stood was not large, except for dwarfs; for them it would be a great hall. It was floored and walled with clean, shining wood, and there were two doors, one at either end. There was an open fire-place, in which two black iron dogs with curly tails held up some logs of wood that were smouldering and purring in a comfortable way, as if they had been lighted more for pleasure than for warmth. Near the fire stood an easy-chair, and another chair was drawn up by a table that stood in the window. It was on seeing this table that the child began to fear all was not quite right. It was a neat little table, just about high enough for dwarfs, if they were not very short dwarfs; it was laid with a snowy cloth, as they always are; but—where were the seven places? there was only one at this table. There was a plate, a knife and fork, a cup and saucer, a little loaf of bread and a little pat of butter, a pitcher of milk, and a comb of golden honey. What did this mean?

"Well, I can't help it," said the child, suddenly. "If they is gone away all but one of them, I can't help it; they shouldn't play that way, and I'm hungry. Just I'll take a little bit, as Snow-white did. Just that's what I'll do!"

She seated herself at the table, and poured some milk into the cup. Oh, how good it was! She broke off a bit of bread, and nibbled it; her spirits rose, and she began to feel again that she was having the most splendid time that ever was. She broke out into her song—

Then she stopped, for the door of the further room opened quietly, and the dwarf came in.