"You cannot; for, ambitious as I am, I want your help. See how much faster we travel together when your strength is joined to mine; and I'm the strongest, and you can't go back."
The wandering Brooklet looked fearfully around, and saw indeed that the log she had leaped was now fast fading away, and felt that her strength became less and less as the ambitious Brooklet clung closer to her side.
Presently they came in sight of a ledge of rocks. "Oh, this is rare indeed!" said the stronger sister Brooklet, "Let us pause a bit for breath, and then for a merry leap adown the valley of pines you see before."
The Brooklets stopped, and became stronger, and leaped over the rocks; the one with an exulting bound—the other carried tremblingly along.
The leap was a long one, and a hard one; for there were craggy rocks beneath, which they had not seen. And the ambitious Brooklet cried sharply and loudly—foaming in her rage as she went between the stony points, and quite forgetting her weaker sister in her pain. The latter was sorely injured too, and cut into little foam-bits; but she kept her wits about her, looking around everywhere for a place to rest. Soon she espied one—a little bowl of marshy ground, hemmed in by rocks, into which a straggling dropping from the chasm above slowly came.
"Here will I go and rest," she said. So waiting for the ambitious Brooklet to get far out of sight, she collected all her strength for a jump into the bowl, where the drops came sparkling in. There was no need for fear of the sister on before; her she heard going over rock after rock, crying and wailing in her craggy journey. Then the tired wanderer, with a violent effort of her exhausted strength, jumped a rock and fell panting into the marshy bowl.
CHAPTER II.
How the Brooklet lived on in her new quarters; and how misfortune made her discontented.
The dropping of the water from the rocks above her new abode, was cold and grateful to the Brooklet in her fevered state. It made her think of the spring she came from; and so of the meadow; and the alder-bushes; and the lovely face a weary way off now she knew, and fenced away from her return by cruel jagged rocks.
Days passed by; and the sun came out all brightly. And the moon and stars were seen again; and larger and sweeter birds than she had heard before, now perched upon the trees about, warbling and chirruping from day-break to twilight. So the time passed on. The wanderer began to feel unsettled in her solitude. But there was no return by the path she came; still were the sharp rocks seen above; and still she felt a twinge of pain when thinking of her weary journey on that rainy day. Often too she thought of her ambitious sister, wondering where she was now and what she was about; and sometimes she almost fancied she would have been happier had she gone along. It was quite evident to herself that she was getting discontented.