Then Minnie found, to her surprise, that the snails, which seemed so fastened into the rocks by their shell, moved, shell and all. She found them travelling in every direction,--but O, so slowly! It made her ache to see them. She could run across the beach a dozen times before a snail had moved an inch.
Sometimes she took them in her hands and carried them to the pool they were trying to reach; but they always said it made them dizzy and confused to fly along so fast, and they preferred their own slow way.
Sometimes the snails ran races with each other. That was a droll thing to watch, for they all travelled as slowly, it seemed to Minnie, as the minute-hand on the clock in her father's office. They would start together, large snails and little ones, white snails and yellow, brown and black, striped, spotted, shaded, dragging their houses after them. There was a pretty little fellow, with a shell so bright it looked like gold; he almost always won the race.
One day Minnie picked up a beautiful purple mussel-shell, lined with pearl, and with a ledge of pearl inside, that served her for a seat. She launched this on the waves, and they bore her out to sea, where she drifted on without a fear, she knew how to swim so well, in case her boat upset; and then the beach birds were always ready to sail alongside of her little bark, and they could carry tidings home, should any harm befall her.
CHAPTER XXXII.
STORM AND CALM.
Minnie was very happy at the shore. A stranger stork did come one day, and, mistaking her for a fish, suddenly snatch her from her boat; but she held his bill so fast that he was glad to drop her on the beach. And at dark she was sorely afraid of the lobsters that crawled about the rocks, blindly stretching their black claws for food; but they had never harmed her yet, and, on the whole, the tiny woman thought she was having a beautiful time.
She loved to chase the little dimpling waves; she was never tired of watching the flash of sunlight on the water by day, and at evening the sweet path of moonlight, that stretched so far, seemed like a path to her home,--if only she dared to trust herself on the waves!