At first he could not tell where he was, but in a moment he remembered all, and jumped up in the greatest excitement, saying, “How could I have slept, when the dear mother was expecting me? She will be so anxious. Oh, let me go to her! Please, good lady, let me go!”
“What do you mean,” answered the old woman. “You have no mother! you are my little servant, Crimson Tuft. I gave you that name, myself, on account of your red hair, which stands up like a crest on the top of your ugly head.”
Then the child began to cry, saying, “My hair is not red, and my name is Paul, and it was my dear mother who sold you vegetables at the market this morning. Let me go home, oh! please let me go home to the dear mother.”
The child’s voice was broken with sobs, but the hard-hearted woman only laughed, “Ha! ha! it is a curious dream you have had, or are you going crazy? your hair not red! indeed! why, look in the glass yourself.”
She led him to a mirror, and there the unhappy child saw reflected the ugly wretch called Crimson Tuft, but never again the handsome little Paul.
The child was more frightened and bewildered than ever. He was sure he had left the mother that morning, in company with this horrible old woman. Every thing in the rude little home rose in his mind, yet he could not realize his own identity. Paul surely he could not see in the reflecting mirror, only the ugly little Crimson Tuft.
He raised his hands and took hold of the stiff shock of red hair that stood up· right upon his head. Oh, no! it was not Paul’s soft silken curls.
Yet there was a look about the eyes that reminded him of Paul, but even they were very different: they were the red, swollen, terror-strained eyes of Crimson Tuft.
“Are you satisfied now,” said the old woman. “It was only a dream, a queer dream that you have had, Crimson Tuft, and how funny that you should think you were an old vegetable-woman’s child. You, my servant, who have never been out of this place in your life.”
Still the child only cried the more, and entreated, “Let me go home to the mother, let me go home.”