A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion, “Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people know your wishes instead of muttering them to yourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Were they?” asked Lois.
She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what Judy was telling them without interruption.
“That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied. “There weren’t any of them impossible.”
And she went on to tell them how, the very next day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it. Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy had stared at them a moment and then climbed the steps to the pool.
“Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud. “Is this beautiful fountain real?”
A voice had answered, although she could see no one.
“Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely come true.”
“A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed a tear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.”
“Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will surely come true,” the voice had repeated.