"Hello," cried Mary Louise, "don't you want me to help you?"
When the little dwarf heard her voice, he started to run away, but Mary Louise caught him by the tail of his coat.
"Don't be afraid of me, little dwarf, I won't harm you."
So the dwarf set down his basket of seeds, and after he had straightened his coat, for it was half off his back, he said:
"I'll give you some of the seeds. They are very wonderful seeds."
Then little Mary Louise said good-by and by and by she came to a poor woodcutter's hut. In answer to her knock an old woman opened the door.
"How do you do!" she said with a bow, and then she told Mary Louise that her husband had just gone to the village for sunflower seeds. Wasn't that strange? It made Mary Louise laugh and taking from her pocket a handful she showed them to the old lady.
"My husband may not find any," she said. "Will you give me two that I may plant them on each side of our front door?" Then digging a hole in the ground on each side of the step she planted the seeds. And, would you believe it? all of a sudden a yellow stalk sprung up, and pretty soon it was as high as the door and then it was higher than the roof and before long it reached way up into the sky, so far and so high that you couldn't see the top.
"Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed the old woman. "What kind of seeds are these?"
"I'll climb up and see," and up the stalk went little Mary Louise. Bigger and bigger it grew until finally it spread out altogether into a great big meadow covered with sunflowers.