CHAPTER III.
MINNIE'S HOME.
We have found, from the history of Dandelion, that no one is too small to be of use. We have found that kind hearts may succeed where wise heads and strong arms fail; but perhaps you will wonder what Rodocanachi has to do with my story.
I'll tell you. Have you forgotten that I began to describe a beautiful little town, with roads that wound about like rivers, and houses set in the midst of garden-beds?
Great hills rose on every side, folding against each other as if they meant to shut out the rest of the world, with its noise, and trouble, and weariness. So the valley looked, from a distance, like a bird's nest lined with moss, and leaves, and long fine grass; and the houses and churches seemed like white eggs scattered among the greenery.
Or, if you stood in the centre, the slopes of the hills were so smooth and round, that the valley was like the inside of a painted bowl:--here were woods and waterfalls like pictures; here meadows of grass and grain; white patches of buckwheat, and the tender green of oat-fields, were striped along with brown potato-beds, and patches of dark-green tasselled maize.
In this gay-painted bowl, in this soft grassy nest, lived a little girl, whose name was Minnie, and whose history I mean to tell.
But what has it all to do with Rodocanachi?
Why, this: people say that the beautiful valley between the hills was nothing less than the inside of the giant's great brass helmet! Rivers had found their way through it now, and forests had rooted themselves on the sods that were spread by fairy hands; yet, deep down underneath, the helmet still was wedged among the rocks. Think what a giant Rodocanachi must have been, when you could thus put a whole town into his hat!
Whether the wonderful place in which she lived had anything to do with Minnie's strange history, I cannot tell. See what you think about it.