"Soh, soh, little one," said Father Gilder, "you wouldn't want to leave your old father and mother, would you, Effie?"
"N-n-n-no, b-b-but m-m-mother said I didn't go."
"Ah, well! eat your supper, Effie, and then come and tell me all about it." So Effie ate her supper and then sat in her father's lap, and began to tell him all that I have told you; but before she had gone a great way, she was so sleepy that she couldn't tell any thing more, but kept saying, "And—and—and—a-n-d—a-n-d," till she fell fast asleep, and Mother Gilder put her to bed, and she did not wake up once more till the next morning.
"Well, what d'ye think, old man, about this stuff?" asked Mrs. Gilder, when Effie was snug in bed.
"Well, I don't know," said Mr. Gilder. "Its queer! its queer! I guess the child's been dreaming. Light my pipe, old woman."
So, when Mrs. Gilder had foraged in the pockets of her wonderful apron and brought out the tobacco and matches, and had filled the pipe and lighted it, the fisherman tilted his chair back against the chimney and smoked his pipe, and thought about it; but could not come to any conclusion, till at last his pipe went out, and he nodded, and nodded. Mother Gilder who sat on the other side of the fire-place, knitting a stocking that she brought out of one of her pockets, began to nod, too, waking up every once in a while to find she had dropped her stitches, and so making the needles go fast again for a few moments and then slower, till she nodded again, and at last she was fast asleep on one side of the fire-place, and Father Gilder on the other side, and little Effie in her crib. And we'll steal out on tip-toe, so as not to wake them, and come back again in just a year wanting one day.
Wish the Second.—On the Mountain.
ELL, we have been gone a year lacking one day, and here we are back again on the beach, and there is the cottage, and Mrs. Gilder by her table sewing on a frock for Effie, who is sitting on her seat—the great flat rock, you know—down by the water. Effie is a year older now, and this is her seventh birth-day. She has been a pretty good girl; but then she wished a great many times that she could have stayed at the bottom of the sea, and whenever she thought of it, she seemed to hear the song that they sang there. Now she was sitting on her seat, looking out for the old man, who you remember, had promised to come for her Second Wish. She had thought about him a good many times and had made up her mind what she would ask for. It was growing late and she began to be afraid he would not come. She thought she would walk down the beach and meet him; so she walked along looking for him all the while, when she spied a boat coming toward the shore; but she did not look at it much, she was so anxious to see her old man, and she thought she could make him out, just coming along in the distance. Pretty soon, the boat came up to the beach where she was, and a rough-looking sailor jumped out.