Turn to left and turn to right,
Never will the way be found
By weary walking day and night.”
Kitty pretended not to hear. She walked back the way she fancied she had come. Before, behind, on every side of her stretched the tumbled-about land, and every untidy side looked exactly like the other. Was she really going only round and round? Presently she found herself standing once more close to the queer little boy. There were a number of other children about the place now. They were having high games, throwing each other into a duckweed pond, full of frogs that loudly croaked their vexation; or they were trying to make each other slip into a bed of nettles, or sit down on a wasp’s nest.
Bu—uzz! bu—uzz! went the wasps in a rage.
The children laughed louder and louder, till they fairly screamed with merriment.
The queer little boy sat by himself, striking one stone against another. Out of the dark, dull stones the sparks flew, golden and beautiful. As they flew up he laughed.
“Listen, I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, winking one yellow eye at Kitty. “I am practicing to set the world on fire.”
“The world—on—fire!” she repeated, quite breathless.
The queer boy nodded his head.