Eva's Adventures in Shadow-Land

by Mary D. Nauman; Clara F. Guernsey

At last they came in sight of a little hut, built of rough stones, with a huge toad-stool for a roof, directly in the middle of a field, which was full of little pools of water. The field was surrounded by a strange fence, in which the posts were all toad-stools, and the rails all spider-webs. On each toad-stool a green frog was sitting, and in every web there hung either a red or a black spider. When they came to this fence, the toad, after going up to one of the green frogs and croaking something to him, turned round without so much as saying “good-bye” to Eva, and hopped away just as fast as he could go; and then one of the toad-stools; with the web attached to it, swung open as if it had been on a hinge, so that Eva could enter the inclosure.

She went up to the door of the hut and knocked. And the third time that she knocked the door was opened by a large jackdaw, which Eva immediately recognized as the same bird which she had seen on the brook, dressed in the peacock feathers which he had stolen from the Toad-Woman’s fan; but although she knew him in a moment, he evidently did not know her, she was so very muddy, and so unlike her own self. In the hut, on a toad-stool, which served as a chair, sat the same Green Frog, with a little shawl over her shoulders, she had seen before, which had tried to carry Aster off, and had torn his coat; and it was with some little hesitation that Eva went up to her, and curtsied to her. And then, as she had been told, she asked the Frog if she needed a servant.

The Green Frog inspected her from head to foot.

“You are pretty dirty,” she said to Eva, “and I don’t think that I ever saw you before. But that don’t matter. You will have to work out-of-doors, and if you do your work properly, at the end of the week you may ask for your own wages. But if you don’t work well, I will give you nothing, but I will turn you into a frog, and put you on a toad-stool, as I have done with a great many before you.”

Eva thought to herself that perhaps the Frog never before had a servant like herself, so she told her that she was still willing to hire herself. Then the Frog told the jackdaw to take the new servant out and tell her what she was to do.

So the jackdaw hopped out, and Eva followed him. And when he told her what her work for that week was to be, she thought it was very funny work. And then he told her she might do as she pleased for the rest of that day, but the next morning she must go to work. And Eva amused herself by looking everywhere for Aster. But he was not to be seen. Only, just over the back-door of the hut, there hung a little wire cage, and in it there sat a little green bird, which screamed whenever the jackdaw or the Frog even looked at it. And when it began to grow dark, these two took the little bird out of his cage and picked out his tail and wing-feathers, the bird screaming and struggling all the time, and then they put him back into the cage. And it was just as much afraid of Eva as it was of the jackdaw and the Frog.

There was neither sun nor moon in this place,—as in the forest, when the moon was gone, all the light seemed to come from the earth. And every morning Eva noticed that the tail and wing-feathers of the little green bird had grown again, though every evening either the Frog or the jackdaw pulled them out.

I said that when Eva was told of the work she would have to do she thought it was very queer work. Every morning, when the light drove away the darkness, she was to wipe off and dust the tops of the toad-stools on which the frogs sat, and she thought it would be very easy to do. So she tried to do it, and the jackdaw stood on one foot and cawed at her all the time,—and the more she rubbed and wiped the top of the toad-stool post the dirtier it became,—and she was nearly in despair, when she heard one of the frogs whisper to the other,—

“If she would only catch the jackdaw and sweep one off with his tail, she would have no more trouble.”

And Eva did as the frog had said, and though the jackdaw screamed and struggled, and tried to get away, it did him no good. But she found that when she had swept one toad-stool off that all the rest were as clean and nice as possible, and there was nothing more to be done to any of them. And every evening before the Green Frog went to sleep—she slept every night in a little pond or pool in the corner of the hut—Eva had to walk around the inclosure and count the spiders and see that their webs were whole. But she never had any trouble,—the webs were always whole; and one of the spiders was sure to tell her how many of them there were.