CHAPTER XXVI.
HIDE-AND-SEEK.
One afternoon, tired of playing in the hot sun, Minnie thought she would creep under some shady cluster of leaves, and sleep.
But the butterflies could never have play enough, and the hotter the sunshine, the better for them. So they did not understand that the little girl needed rest, and, thinking her weariness only make-believe, would not give her any peace.
They ran across her hands, they tickled her cheeks with their feathery feelers, they pelted her with buttercups, and at last began to cover her over with leaves of the wild rose. So full of mischief were they, that one could no more sleep, while they were about, than if they'd been so many bees.
At first Minnie tried to be good-natured, and laugh at their pranks; but, warm and tired as she was, you cannot wonder that her patience didn't last.
Some children would have roughly driven the butterflies away--have pelted them with stones, perhaps, and broken their beautiful wings. But Minnie could not forget how kind they had been; and besides, you know, they were not such little things to her as they seem to us; they were almost as large as herself.
She only arose, and, turning her back, would not speak to them, or spoke in such a snappish manner that the butterflies were frightened, and flew away.
Left alone, she espied, near the wood, something that looked like a side-saddle, just large enough for a little body like herself. She sprang to see if there were a tiny horse to fit, and thought how quickly he should gallop off with her, so far that the butterflies could not follow--no, not if they wore their wings off!