“DON’T be long,” said Merrimeg’s mother. “No, mother,” said Merrimeg, and she ran off down the village street, into the woods.
It was May-day, and she was going May-dewing. You know if you wash your face with dew, early on May-morning, it will keep you fair and sweet to look on, almost forever. That is what she was going to do.
She didn’t do it at once, however, because she had to run after a good many rabbits and squirrels. She stopped out of breath beside a pretty little brook, and then she bethought herself that she hadn’t yet washed her face with May-dew. The woods were all about her, and the brook was dropping down over its stones between moss and ferns. It was singing a little song to itself. Merrimeg stopped to listen. She dipped her bare foot in the water, and as she did so she noticed[142] that there was a waterfall, quite a tall one, a little way up the stream, pouring down smoothly into a pool.
She thought she might as well wash her face now with dew, and she stooped down. At that moment the song of the brook became quite loud, and she looked up in surprise. From the pool at the bottom of the waterfall a head was looking out at her, the head of a little girl.
The head nodded at her. Merrimeg stared with both eyes. The head rose up, and the next moment the little girl that it belonged to was standing in shallow water to her knees. She was singing. She was making precisely the same sound as the brook itself, only louder.
She was smaller than Merrimeg. If she hadn’t been so pale, she would have been very pretty indeed. What looked like the stubs of two wings stuck out a trifle from her shoulder-blades. Her little slim body was glistening wet.
She stopped singing, and the instant she did so the brook stopped singing too. It positively fell silent as a pond.
[143]“I know who you are,” said the little girl. “You’re Merrimeg.”
“Are you—?” said Merrimeg. “Are you a—?”
“Yes, of course. I live under the waterfall. I’m Myrma. I’m the fairy of this brook. I’m the one that makes it sound as if the brook was singing. You know the brook can’t sing, really; it’s me. Do you want to hear me do it?”
Merrimeg said “Yes,” and came closer to her. Myrma the fairy opened her mouth, and the sound she made was exactly the little song of a brook, and it seemed to come from the brook itself. She stopped, and the brook was silent again.
“It’s terribly tiresome,” said Myrma, “but I only have to do it when there’s somebody around to hear it. You don’t think the brook sings all the time, do you?”
“I didn’t know,” said Merrimeg.
“When there’s nobody to hear it, what’s the use? But I’m supposed to keep it up as long as there’s anybody around. Oh, dear, I get so[144] tired hiding away behind the waterfall when people come. I just couldn’t help coming out to see you. Do you like me?”
“Yes,” said Merrimeg.
“I like you too. Would you—do you think you could—kiss me?”
Merrimeg waded in to her and kissed her on the cheek. She gave a great sigh.
“Now you’ve made me warm all over. I wish you’d stay with me. I can show you things, lots of things. Wouldn’t you like to see them?”
“What kind of things?”
“Oh, all kinds. But you haven’t washed your face with May-dew yet, have you?”
“No.”
“Because that would spoil it. Give me your hand, and I’ll take you back there behind the waterfall.”
“Oh,” said Merrimeg. “I couldn’t—I—”
“Come along. Back of the waterfall I’ll show you lots of things. Hold my hand tight. That’s right. Here we go.”
She pulled Merrimeg along to the waterfall.[145] “Stoop down,” she said, and pulled Merrimeg head-foremost into it. The water pounded on Merrimeg’s back, and she gasped for breath. The next moment she was through on the other side.
“Oh!” she cried. “I mustn’t! I must go back!”
“Please do come along with me,” said Myrma, and held her hand tight.
It was pitch dark. Merrimeg was rather frightened, but she was very curious too. She let herself be led onward, and in a few moments they began to go down hill. For a long, long time they walked down hill, in the pitch dark. The way became steeper and steeper. “I’m afraid,” whispered Merrimeg. “Why, it’s perfectly safe,” said Myrma. “I only hope nobody’ll come to the brook while I’m away.”
They were deep, deep down in the earth when they stopped. Myrma seemed to push against something, and in a moment a door opened, and she drew Merrimeg through.
On the other side—really, it didn’t seem possible[146] there could be such a place, so deep underground. It was a long and beautiful valley, with a blue roof high overhead, exactly like the sky. A road ran down the valley between meadows all spangled with daisies and buttercups. The light that spread everywhere was the soft light of early morning. Here and there in the meadows were blossoming trees, a lovely mass of pink and white. The scent of honeysuckle came on the cool breeze.
“Isn’t it lovely!” said Merrimeg.
“Of course,” said Myrma. “It’s always lovely in springtime. I think he’ll be here in a minute.”
“Who?” said Merrimeg.
“Old Porringer. He runs the stage-coach. He ought to be here by this time—Here he comes!”
Down the road came a little glass coach, drawn by a pair of tiny white ponies. On the coachman’s seat was a little old man with a white beard. “Whoa!” he piped up, and drew in the ponies. Merrimeg laughed at the sight of this[147] little coach, made all of glass, and the cunning little ponies, and the funny little old coachman.
“Anything to laugh at?” said the old coachman, sitting up straight.
“Never mind, Porringer,” said Myrma. “We want to take a trip with you.”
“Where do you want to stop?” said Old Porringer.
“At number fifteen, number thirty-five, and number eighty,” said Myrma.
“Jump in then,” said Old Porringer, and flourished his little whip.
Myrma opened the door of the glass coach, and the two little girls got in and sat down. The ponies pranced, the coachman touched them up with his whip, and away they went at a smart trot down the road. Merrimeg laughed with glee.
“Now aren’t you glad you came with me?” said Myrma.
“Do you suppose he’d let us drive the ponies?” said Merrimeg.
“Oh no,” said Myrma. “He has to be very[148] careful. There are bad creatures along the road, and they try to break the glass, and he has to watch out for them. If they break it to pieces before he gets to the end of the road, it’ll be a bad thing for you. They do, sometimes. You never can tell.”
“Oh!” said Merrimeg, a little alarmed.
“All you have to do is to have a good time, and leave it to him. He always has to start out each time with a new coach, because the old one is broken to pieces by the time he gets to the end of the road. But the less you think about it the better. Just look at those buttercups in the meadow! I know how to tell whether you like butter.”
The coach sped merrily along, and the little girls chattered gaily. Once there sprang up beside the road an ugly little imp with big ears, who threw a stone after them; but Old Porringer whipped up the ponies, and the stone missed the coach. The little girls laughed.
Merrimeg grew drowsy after a while, with the easy motion of the coach and the soft spring air,[149] and at last she put her head back and went to sleep. She was awakened once by the sound of breaking glass, and she found that a stone had come through a corner of the coach; but it didn’t seem to matter, and she went to sleep again.
The next thing she knew, Myrma was shaking her arm. “We’re going to stop now,” said Myrma, and Merrimeg sat up and rubbed her eyes.
She found she was looking into a mirror, which she hadn’t noticed before, hanging opposite her in the coach. She saw herself in it. She was a grown girl, seemingly about fifteen years old, and her hair was done in a pigtail, and her dress was down to her ankles. She was carrying school-books in her arm.
She wasn’t the least bit surprised, strange to say. It seemed as if she had always been as old as that. She didn’t realize that it must have been years and years since she started on this journey. Could she have been asleep all that time? However, all she was thinking about was, that if you multiplied a + b by a - b, what was[150] the answer? She was about to open one of her school books, when the coach stopped, and they got out before a large building which had a sign on it with the number “15.”
Boys and girls of her own age were going into this building. Myrma followed her in, but Merrimeg quite forgot about her companion. She seemed to know exactly what to do. She walked down a hall and into a schoolroom, and sat down at a desk. Other boys and girls were at their desks, and the teacher, a tall lady with spectacles, was writing with chalk on a blackboard.
Merrimeg felt a tug at her pigtail, and she turned round quickly. The boy at the desk behind her was gazing hard at a book in his hand. He was a jolly-looking boy.
“Did you pull my hair, Peter Prawn?” she said to him, in great indignation.
The boy looked up innocently. “Who, me?” he said.
“Yes, you,” she said. “If you do that once more, I’ll—I’ll— You’re just horrid, and I[151] wish you wouldn’t ever speak to me again. So there.”
Master Peter laughed, and this made her angrier still. But she couldn’t help thinking what a jolly laugh it was.
“Order!” said the teacher. “The class in algebra will come to order. Answer to your names as I call the roll.”
Chalk, blackboard, a + b, x - y, teacher handing out papers, boys playing tricks, girls passing notes,—all this dragged on forever and forever, and there didn’t seem to be any hope of ever getting out; but a bell rang at last, and school was over.
The glass coach was waiting outside. Merrimeg noticed that it was broken in several places. Myrma took her hand, and they sat down inside the coach. Old Porringer touched up his ponies, and away they ran, faster than before.
“What’s the matter with your hair?” said Myrma.
Merrimeg looked at the end of her pigtail, and it was all green.
[152]“Oh, it’s that horrid boy,” she said. “He’s dipped it in his ink-well. I’ll never never speak to him again.”
The ponies trotted much faster down the valley now. The blossoms had dropped from the trees, and the air was warmer and the light brighter. Merrimeg yawned and closed her eyes. “I think I’ll take a little nap,” she said.
When she woke up, the mirror was before her again, and she looked at herself in it. She was a grown woman. Her hair was coiled at the back of her head. She was tall and slender, and her head nearly touched the roof of the coach. She looked as if she might have been about thirty-five years old. Myrma looked very tiny beside her. The coach was badly broken, in many places.
“Now we’re going to get out,” said Myrma, and the coach stopped b............