Of these last, Minnie caught several; but they slipped through her fingers again before she could be certain that she had them there. She might as well have tried to hold one of the ripples of the brook.
Now that the butterflies had forsaken her, Minnie found it lonely in the meadow, and spent most of her time by the stream. When it was low she would trip over the wet, rough stones in its bed so fast that the dragon-flies, with all their wings, could hardly keep pace with her.
And, when the little stream was full to its brim, she would nestle inside of a water-lily, and float for hours, half asleep, watching the sunny ripples pass. In more restless moods, she would climb tall bulrushes, or swing among the long, ribbon-like iris leaves. There was no end to the ways she had of amusing herself.
But one day, when she was swinging, a boy mistook her for a butterfly, and, springing among the iris-leaves, had almost caught her in his hat. Another day, as she was floating in the brook, an angler came, and threw a pretty, gay-winged fly into the water. When Minnie seized this, a sharp hook pierced her hand, and, the next thing she knew, she was lifted high in the air on the fisherman's line! In an instant she freed herself from the hook, and fell back into the water; but it was many days before the wound stopped smarting, and many more before it healed.
Still another time, Minnie found the brook covered with mosquitoes; the fields were parched with the August sun; and the road, where all the birds had gone to chat with the butterflies, was hot and dusty. So the little girl nestled under some cool violet leaves. In the woods violets blossom all the year round, you know, not plentifully as in spring, but here and there you find a cluster in bloom.
Such an one Minnie found, and, when she stretched herself in the grateful shade of its leaves, the sweet flowers looked down at her like the blue eyes of her mother, and the wind, that was whispering through the long, fine grass, seemed her dear lullaby.
But, as she leaned her head on the moss at the violet roots, and thought of home, there came a sudden jar, and the next moment she was rolling in a heap of dusty earth, and vainly striving to free herself, as you have seen ants when their nest was broken open.
A man was digging up the sod of violets to plant on the grave of his little child that was dead. Minnie feared that, if he detected her, he would stick her on a pin, as some new kind of butterfly, for his cabinet. She hardly dared breathe until his work was finished, and the man had gone away.