“The Silly Little Brook did just as the Sun told her, and looked back of her. ‘I don’t see anything,’ she said, ‘except a black hole in the ground.’
“‘Of course you don’t,’ said the Sun, ‘because that’s all there is to see. You’ve just come out of that hole, where you’ve been asleep all your life. Now look ahead!’
“The Sun said this so loud, and stared at her face so long, that the Silly Little Brook began to feel quite uncomfortable; so she winked and blinked and said nothing.
“‘Look ahead,’ commanded the Sun sharply. ‘Oh, you silly, stupid, little thing!’ And this time she obeyed; and there was a tiny, wee, little stream of clear, white water trickling away like a thread down the mountain.”
“It was the Silly Little Brook,” cried Phronsie, clapping her hands in glee, just as if she hadn’t heard the story time and again.
“Yes,” said Polly, bobbing her head, and setting in quick stitches, “so it was. ‘Now hurry up!’ said the Sun; by this time he was very fierce, for his face had been getting rounder and bigger every minute, ‘and set to work, for you have a great deal to do. Be a useful little brook, and don’t stop on your way, and I shall be glad that you woke up. Good-day!’ And the Silly Little Brook felt her feet give way before her, and in a minute she was slipping and sliding down, down, the mountain side.
“‘I’m not going to be sent down in this fashion,’ she grumbled as soon as she could catch her breath, while she rested a bit in a hollow. ‘I shall choose my way, and what I’ll do; and I’m not going to work all the time either, and that cross old Sun needn’t think he can command me to do it. I’m going to play as much as I want to.’ With that she rested in the hollow all that day, and the next, and the next.”
[Phronsie shook her yellow head mournfully], as one who knows a sorrowful tale too well.
