This was a favourite spot with these little people, for they were well out of sight of the rest of the world. The lane curved around the hill which was behind them, wound over the rustic bridge, and lost itself in the green woods on the other side. Below them were the meadows, where loads of “roosters”—as country children call the sweet little white violets—grew in abundance.
There sat the three little maids, I say, swinging their black-stockinged legs, and nodding their three heads, black, brown and golden, keeping time to the clatter of their busy tongues.
There was so much to talk about, you see, for Hilda’s mamma had promised her that she might have all her little friends come to supper next week, to celebrate her eleventh birthday. Of course they had to arrange about the invitations and the amusements.
At last Cricket’s active body tired of being still so long, and she began to look around for exercise, for she had been sitting there for quite fifteen minutes. She edged along on her somewhat unsteady seat, when suddenly the treacherous rail turned completely over, and laid her on her back in the soft meadow grass. Hilda and Eunice shouted with laughter, for such an accident was so like Cricket; but the little girl, not in the least troubled, picked herself up. To be sure, there was a jagged tear in her fresh, blue gingham, and a great grass-stain on it, as well, but these were every-day affairs.
She jumped over the fence and sat down on the end of the wooden bridge, which crossed the road, with her feet hanging over the water, idly dropping pebbles down. Presently this inspired her with a new idea.
“Oh, girls!” she exclaimed, “let’s dam up the brook!”
This proposal immediately met with the greatest favor. Hilda and Eunice jumped briskly down, and Cricket jumped briskly up. The stone wall along the road supplied them with material, and they fell energetically to work.
Back and forth they went like little beavers, carrying stones instead of wood. They stood at the end of the bridge, and dropped the stones down, splash, just in the right place. It was great fun, tugging at the stones from the wall, finding the loose ones they could take, without leaving too large a space; or pulling out the wrong one, and bringing half a dozen more rattling about their feet, so that they had to jump, screaming, out of the way. Then they must tug and strain to roll them up the bank to the lane, and then on to the bridge, and over into the stream.
Being, as I said, a lonely, out-of-the-way place, it happened that no one passed to notice the mischief the children were doing. So they worked away undisturbed.
They lifted stones that were twice the size of their own heads, quite scorning the little ones, excepting to fill in with. When they presently paused to take breath and to survey their work, the stones lay closely packed together from side to side, and the water was deepening fast. Panting and quite tired out, they threw themselves on the grassy bank to rest.