"I shall not close my eyes all night," she said; and she did not. When the rooster over in the barnyard crowed for morning, her eyes were as wide open as they had been when the first star shone the evening before.
Almost as soon as it was light again she heard a noise in the meadow. Swish, swash! Swish, swash! it sounded. The children's father was cutting his grass with a sharp-bladed scythe, but the doll did not know this and when the grass around her fell down in a heap upon her she thought that the end of everything had come.
"What in the world has happened?" she asked a grasshopper who had been caught in the fall.
"That is just what I should like to know myself," he answered; and he struggled up to the sunshine and never came back.
The children did not come to look again for the doll that day, or the next, and she gave up all hope of being found.
"They have gone to visit their grandparents," she said. "I heard them talking about it. They have forgotten me, and I shall never see them again."
That very afternoon, however, they came to the meadow to help their father rake the grass, which the sun by that time had dried into sweet-smelling hay. They had been on a visit, sure enough, and as they worked they talked of the things they had done while they were away from home. The doll could hear every word they said.
"I rode Grandpa's horse to water two times by myself," said the little boy.
"I fed Grandma's chickens every day with corn," said the little girl.