Happy Days for Boys and Girls Part 30

"Ah, no, little girl! there is nothing the matter with your hair.

Only--" The lady was thinking how soft, and fine, and curly was the yellow hair of which she had been dreaming.

"What do you want?" asked the lady.

"I'm very hungry," said Puppet, "because of the walk, and--and--and all," concluded Puppet, remembering that the lady could not understand.

"Come in, then."

Puppet went in. Up in one corner of the sitting-room were a little tip-cart and a doll. Puppet ate her bread and meat, looking hard at the tip-cart.

"Where is it, mum?"

"Where is what, child?"

"The child, mum." Puppet pointed to the tip-cart.

"Gone, my dear," said the lady, softly.

"Dead?" Puppet remembered that that was what they said about her uncle when he went away. It was the only going away that she had ever known.

"Yes, I suppose so," said the lady, with a little shiver.

"That's bad, mum."

"No, not bad," said the lady, sorrowfully. "It is just right that it should be so."

"But it must be lonesome like, unless there were kicks and things."

Puppet was still thinking of her uncle.

The lady wondered what the child could mean, and not knowing, said,--

"What's your name? How could I have forgotten to ask your name?"

"Puppet."

"That's a funny name. And where do you live?"

"Two or three miles away from here."

"Have you walked here to-day?"

"Yes, mum."

"What should make the child walk so far, I wonder?"

"Money, mum, and things to eat."

"Have you eaten enough?"

"Yes. I must go home now, or I shall be late."

"Are you sure you know the way?" asked the lady, a little anxiously.

"You're such a little thing!"

"O, yes, mum! Go as I came."

"Well, good by."

"Good by, mum."

But was Puppet _sure_ that she knew the way?

The next morning, a man walking on a road that ran by the edge of a meadow, was going to his work.

Hark! What did he hear? Was it a cry! was it a child's cry? And what was that? It sounded like a fiddle. He stopped to look around.

"I declare, we've had a high tide in the night!" said he, and trudged on.

But what was that? _That_ was certainly a child's cry.

The man looked sharply about.

"It can't be she," he said. "Folks from heaven wouldn't cry, even if they were let to come--at least, if they were little children."

And so he still looked sharply about. And looking, what did he see?

He saw great haystacks of meadow hay out in the meadow, with the tide-water all about them. Then his eyes were fixed on one particular haystack. On its top, with her yellow hair and smiling face in sight, was--it could not be, though--but it was--a little girl, and dangling by the side of the stack was a guitar with a yellow face. The man waded through the water that lay between the dry land and the stack.

"Crawl down to my shoulders;" and he stood by the side of the stack till she was on his shoulders, with her arms about his neck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Puppet, with her guitar, sitting on top of a haystack}]

"How came you there?"

"I went everywhere to try to get home, and it was dark, all but the moon; and I saw the stack, and a board went from the ground to the top of it."

"Sure enough, the prop."

"And I was so tired!"

"Poor child!"

"And I never saw the water come before, and it was only wet enough to wet my feet when I got up."

"Well, well! We'll go home and get something to eat."

The man walked into his kitchen with the little girl and the guitar on his shoulders.