Minnie; or, The Little Woman Part 15

They were not larger than a robin, but had long legs and bills, so as to wade and catch fish among the waves.

Minnie made friends with them, and offered to give them lessons in dancing, of which they seemed so fond; but they told her they had only learned their droll steps from a habit of skipping away from waves when the tide was coming in.

Still, they allowed her to arrange them for a contra dance, and, though she had some trouble in persuading part to wait while the others went through their figure, Minnie laughed till she was tired, with the funny sight they made.

As the tide left the beach, Minnie found plenty of rocks, and all along the crevices of the rock were snails, such as stork had brought her the night before; and, on the sides, barnacles, a kind of fish that, except it is white and hard, looks like some plant growing. In hollows, where there were pools of water, she saw purple mussels, their sh.e.l.ls half open that they might enjoy the sun.

Then the seaweeds were different from anything she had ever seen. They were shaped like trees,--apple-trees, or willows, or elms; but were of the gayest colors you can think,--bright red, pink, purple, yellow, green, and some were jet black, and pretty shades of brown. Some had fruit on them,--dark yellow berries, or apples, with a rosy side like any on our trees, only small as the head of a pin. The tallest of the trees were not higher than the length of your hand. It was like a little fairy forest.

Then Minnie found, to her surprise, that the snails, which seemed so fastened into the rocks by their sh.e.l.l, moved, sh.e.l.l and all. She found them travelling in every direction,--but O, so slowly! It made her ache to see them. She could run across the beach a dozen times before a snail had moved an inch.

Sometimes she took them in her hands and carried them to the pool they were trying to reach; but they always said it made them dizzy and confused to fly along so fast, and they preferred their own slow way.

Sometimes the snails ran races with each other. That was a droll thing to watch, for they all travelled as slowly, it seemed to Minnie, as the minute-hand on the clock in her father's office. They would start together, large snails and little ones, white snails and yellow, brown and black, striped, spotted, shaded, dragging their houses after them.

There was a pretty little fellow, with a sh.e.l.l so bright it looked like gold; he almost always won the race.

One day Minnie picked up a beautiful purple mussel-sh.e.l.l, lined with pearl, and with a ledge of pearl inside, that served her for a seat. She launched this on the waves, and they bore her out to sea, where she drifted on without a fear, she knew how to swim so well, in case her boat upset; and then the beach birds were always ready to sail alongside of her little bark, and they could carry tidings home, should any harm befall her.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

STORM AND CALM.

Minnie was very happy at the sh.o.r.e. A stranger stork did come one day, and, mistaking her for a fish, suddenly s.n.a.t.c.h her from her boat; but she held his bill so fast that he was glad to drop her on the beach. And at dark she was sorely afraid of the lobsters that crawled about the rocks, blindly stretching their black claws for food; but they had never harmed her yet, and, on the whole, the tiny woman thought she was having a beautiful time.

She loved to chase the little dimpling waves; she was never tired of watching the flash of sunlight on the water by day, and at evening the sweet path of moonlight, that stretched so far, seemed like a path to her home,--if only she dared to trust herself on the waves!

Then all the changing colors of the water, and the pretty wreaths of foam, delighted her. She built a house, for herself, of such white pebbles and sh.e.l.ls that it looked like a little marble palace. And the tables and seats inside, and the bed, were all beautiful mother-of-pearl.

But a storm came one day, and washed away her house, and dashed the waves so high upon the beach, that Minnie fled for her life.

It happened a spruce-tree stood not far from the sh.o.r.e; so she scrambled up into its branches, both to be sheltered from, and to watch, the storm.

It was awful to see the great waves rise and beat against the beach, as if they meant to wash the whole world away, and to hear the grating of the stones they clashed together, and see the great mats of seaweed they tore from the rocks, and the sh.e.l.ls they swept out of their crevices, and tossed on the sh.o.r.e in heaps.

And the water kept rising, and rising, till it covered the beach, and came nearer and nearer, until it reached the roots of the very tree into which Minnie had climbed. It had been hard enough to bear the beating of the branches in the wind, but now must she be drowned, so far from her home, and no one ever dream what had become of her?

[Ill.u.s.tration: MINNIE AT HOME.]

Minnie screamed with fright, and then, through the storm, she seemed to hear a low song, such as her mother used to sing, and, instead of the rough spruce branches, it seemed as if her mother's arms were about her now.

She opened her eyes in wonder. Could it be that the soft hand she had missed so long was stroking her curls once more? that the dear voice she had never thought to hear again was singing soft lullabies over her?

that Allie was looking in her face, and Frank was holding her pale hand in his?

Yes, and, stranger still, her mother and Franky declared that they had been with her all the while. On that first day of my story, when the squirrel came,--it seemed years ago to Minnie, now,--she had fallen from the fence, and bruised her head, and had been sick with a fever ever since, and they thought she must have dreamed these marvellous things.

Certain it was that, when the little girl looked in the gla.s.s, she found herself large as ever, though pale and very thin. Her gown, too, was made of muslin, instead of forest leaves; and, instead of being perched on a pine-bough, here she stood in her own father's home!

And here she resolved to stay and be content. For, whether awake or in a fever-dream, Minnie had learned this, that, let it be large or small, there is, in all this great wide world, no place so safe and pleasant as our home. And this, besides, that the handsomest, kindest, gayest among strangers, will never make up for the loss of our own friends, the parents that have watched over us ever since we were born, the brothers and sisters that have played by the same fireside, and under the same green trees.

Dear children, when you are older, you will find that all the people in this world have strayed, like Minnie; that they wander about, making acquaintance with many creatures, but still unsatisfied; that they encounter storms, and suffer weariness and loneliness, and long for those who dwell in the far-off home.

Yes, and some morning we all shall wake in our Father's house, and find about us the blessed voices and dear forms of those we have loved; and then it will be like a dream that we seemed to lose them once.

That home is on the other side of the stars. But Frank and Minnie are young yet, and expect to find it here. They are young, and cannot believe that their senses may be mistaken, and that all Minnie's curious changes happened in a dream. Many an afternoon they still spend in looking for the wondrous weed that will make them understand the language of birds, and squirrels, and b.u.t.terflies.

And, to tell you the truth, I more than half believe they will find it yet.