Minnie: or, The Little Woman: A Fairy Story

Even after yellow-bird was out of sight, the sad notes of her song came back, and she never knew of the tears that Minnie shed for her.

A spider now let herself down by her silken thread from the bough above, where she had been listening to Minnie's words, and pitying her sorrow.

"Come! this is no way to be happy," she said, "and no way to make friends. Who'd care to know such a ragged little witch as you? And you're dusty as a toad. Why don't you wash your face, and mend your gown, and let folks see you are good for something?"

"O, I have tried!" said Minnie, mournfully. "I tried to sew a new gown out of elm leaves; but they were so tender they wilted and tore before I could put them together. Then I picked some beautiful oak leaves, and they were so tough they blunted my needle, and frayed the spider-webs I was sewing with."

"O, well, come down in the grass, and see what we can do together."

Down leaped Minnie, like a squirrel, and down dropped spider on her silken thread. They ran through the grass together till they came to a dwarf-oak, from which Minnie picked the large leaves, while spider wove them together with her curious web.

Minnie seated herself on a mushroom, and watched her good-natured friend at work. Spider wove her threads back and forth, till the seams appeared to be laced together with silvery, silken cords. She finished each with silver tassels; and, when Minnie had dressed in her handsome gown, wove a scarf of silver-gauze to throw across her shoulders.

Then Minnie twisted grass-blades together, as yellow-bird had taught her, and made a strong girdle for her waist, and tucked a rose leaf under it for apron, and picked for bonnet a purple snap dragon, with a golden frill inside.

But, alas, the happy, laughing look was gone from Minnie's eyes; and the rags and the little sun-burnt face looked out beneath all her finery!

CHAPTER XXX.

STORK

A few days after Minnie's escape from the pitcher-plant she heard the minnows telling each other about a dreadful creature, that had been wading in the brook, catching the fish in his wide bill, and gobbling them down two or three at a time.

She thought it must be the stork, and that she would keep out of his way; but, when he really came at last, she couldn't help feeling how nice it would be to sit high and dry on his back while he waded up and down the stream. So Minnie came out of her hiding-place, and asked stork if he remembered her.

"Don't I? It's all I have lingered here for-the hope of seeing my queer little woman again. My own home is far off, beside the blue ocean, where I can hear the pleasant music of the waves."

"How I should like to hear them!" Minnie exclaimed. "Do they make as loud a sound as the water of the brook?"

"Not much louder when the weather is fair; but, in a storm, they roar like thunder, and don't they throw dainty breakfasts upon the rocks for me, then!"

"What! honey, and rose leaves, and berries?"

"No; where should they come from? The waves bring good fat fish, and clams, and black lobster-claws, that get broken in the storm."

"O, dear, is that all?"

"If you like it better, they bring shells, and pebbles white as eggs, and beautiful seaweeds gay as any garden-flower, and little red crabs, and curious star-fish. Come home with me, and I'll show what the waves can do!"

Minnie was not sorry to leave the brook, which had become so unsafe for her; and, besides, you know she was always ready for a change. So, begging the stork to bend his neck as near the ground as he could, she clambered upon his back. Then stork outspread his broad, strong wings, and up they flew, and on, on, on, I cannot tell how many miles, till they reached the ocean-side.

Minnie had seen wide rivers and lakes before; but never anything equal to this mighty ocean, which lay beneath them like an enormous mirror, as they flew, – like a great glittering floor of glass.

On one side it stretched far out-nothing but water-till it reached the sky; on the other, it was bordered by a beach of smooth, white sand, over which lay strewn the gay seaweeds, and pebbles, and shells, about which stork had told her.

Glad to stand on her feet again, Minnie skipped along the shore, stooping often to admire some smooth, pearly shell, or glistening pebble, or heap of shining bubbles thrown up by the waves, and changing like opals in the sun.

It seemed as if the little waves were chasing her; as if they ran up the smooth sand on purpose to kiss her feet; as if they were asking her to accept the pretty weeds and stones which they kept tossing on the beach.

"O, stork, what a beautiful place it is! We will stay here as long as we live!" she said.

"I don't know about that. The beach is a good place after a storm; but we can't dine on bubbles and pebbles, Minnie, so climb my back again, and I'll take you across to the rocks."

A long, black ledge, against which the waves kept dashing, to turn white with foam, and leap glittering into the air, – this was the place toward which stork now steered.

The little woman could not but tremble as she looked down upon all the restless waves which stretched on every side as far as she could see. It was a beautiful sight; but Minnie knew that, if she should fall, the ocean would swallow her more easily than ever stork swallowed a minnow in the brook.

The rocks were wet, they found, and slippery; half covered with coarse seaweed, that was brown as leaves in winter, and did not look like any growing thing. But, selecting a higher ledge, which the sun had dried, stork asked Minnie to sit here and rest, while he went in search of food.

At first she watched the beautiful glittering foam, which leaped so lightly into the air, and then rolled back from the stones, in scattered drops, like showers of red pearls.

Then a croak called Minnie's attention; and, looking across the rocks, she saw stork almost choking himself with trying to swallow a fish too large for his throat. Down it went, at last; and now she watched how cautiously and silently stork crept from stone to stone, lifting his wings that he might easier walk on tip-toe with his clumsy feet. Suddenly down went his snaky neck, and, when it rose, another fish was writhing in his bill.

The little girl was so absorbed in watching her friend at his work, that she did not notice how night was falling, until a gust of cold sea-air made a chill creep over her.

Then, looking about, she found that the water had risen on every side, so as almost to cover the rocks on which she sat. Stars one by one were coming out in the sky, and she called loudly for stork to take her back to the shore.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE SEA-SHORE

Minnie did not call the stork a minute too soon. He had just caught sight of his mate, and, rather stupid with eating so hearty a supper, was about to fly away, forgetting his new friend.

He did not tell her this, but treated her more kindly, perhaps, when he thought how near she came to being drowned by his neglect. For the tide, which rose every minute, would soon have swept her away.

What should he find for Minnie's supper? She was not partial to raw fish. It was too dark now to look for checkerberries and violet buds. Ah! he would find some snails, and she should pick them out from their pretty white shells. They were sweet as smelts, he told her.

But, when Minnie came to look at them, it seemed to her like eating worms, or bugs; and, though stork assured her that in England he had seen some of the finest people eat these snails, she could not make up her mind to put one in her mouth.

So, a bright thought struck stork. Leaving Minnie on the beach, he seized a clam, rose high in the air, and let it fall with such force that the shell broke; out dropped its contents, and the little girl was hungry enough to eat them with a relish.

And, on their way home, stork stopped where there were birds' eggs in plenty. Minnie remembered yellow-bird's grief over the loss of his young, and could not bear to rob the nests at first. But hunger drove her to it afterwards.

Stork settled into his own quiet nest at last, and Minnie, creeping under his wing to keep warm, slept soundly, lulled by the music of the waves.

The next morning Minnie found the beach all over star-shaped tracks, too small for the stork's great feet. She found, soon, that these belonged to a curious little bird, that came in flocks. These skipped about the beach, as if they were trying to dance, or learning to take their steps. 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 shells 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 shell, moved, shell 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 shell so bright it looked like gold; he almost always won the race.

One day Minnie picked up a beautiful purple mussel-shell, 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 XXXII.

STORM AND CALM

Minnie was very happy at the shore. A stranger stork did come one day, and, mistaking her for a fish, suddenly snatch 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 shells 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 shore; 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 shells they swept out of their crevices, and tossed on the shore 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?

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 glass, 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 butterflies.

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