"What has got you started on all this?" her aunt asked. Rowena had expected the question and had been wondering how she should answer it. She would have been willing and glad to tell her aunt all about her wonderful visit, but how could she expect to be believed?
"I was standing on the bridge, thinking of the Princess Polawee," she answered. "I was thinking how bad she would feel over the looks of her river. Then I thought that I looked as untidy and muddy as the river myself, and I began to wish I could clean us both up."
Her aunt was so much surprised to hear this that she began to laugh and Rowena heard the pleasure in it.
"You did well to begin with yourself," she replied, "for I'm thinking you will have more trouble with the river. The selectmen of the village don't care how shiftless and careless the people are here. There are laws enough if people only kept them."
Rowena listened to her attentively. "Where are those men?" she asked.
"In the Town Hall, I suppose, if they ever attend to business, but it's everybody for himself in this village."
Now came the dreaded time of every day to Rowena; time to go to school. Usually she prepared an extra scowl and some little clenched fists, ready to fall upon her tormentors as she walked along, but now it seemed a long, long time since yesterday morning and she trudged down the road, saying to herself that Love was beside her, and every few minutes she looked up and to the right.
At last she came in sight of the school-yard and the boys and girls who had arrived early recognized her.
"Hy—Hy—Hyena," they shouted.
Rowena thought of the children in shining white clothes, and the dove's little feet on her hair, and the way its wings had fanned her cheek. She remembered the songs that she had known and sung.