Her mother laughed. “Merrimeg!” she cried, and laughed louder than before. “You! The idea! You must be crazy! Why, child, you’re as black as ink! My Merrimeg is as fair as a lily! I never saw you before!”
“Oh, mother!” cried Merrimeg. “I’m not black. I’m Merrimeg, and I want to come in!”
“Run away, child,” said her mother. “I’ve no time to bother with strange children now. Run away home to your mother. I’m too busy to bother with you now.”
When she had said that, she went back into the house, and closed the door after her. Merrimeg knocked at the door again and again, but it was no use. Her mother would not pay any attention.
She cried to herself and walked away down the village street. No one knew her. She stopped two or three times, when she met children whom she knew, but they laughed at her and mocked her. They called her “Black face! Black face!” and she ran away.
She came to the end of the village street and went into the woods. She sat down beside a pool of clear water, to rest. She looked down into the pool. She was black.
Her dress was black too. Wherever the imps had touched her (and they had touched her all over) she was as black as chimney soot. She lay down on the grass and cried.
Then she jumped up and stooped over the pool to wash her face in the clear water. She scrubbed her face hard, and looked at it again in the water; and then she cried again, harder than before. Her face was still black; it wouldn’t wash off!
She went on further into the woods, and she really didn’t care what became of her; she wouldn’t care if she got lost and never came home any more; and if she never came home any more, oh! wouldn’t her mother be sorry! She stopped to cry for a few minutes, but she went on again pretty soon, and after a long, long while she found herself in a part of the woods where she had never been before.
She came to a place where there was a great bank of bright green moss under the trees. It was higher in the middle, something like a roof, and it was very soft and cool-looking, and Merrimeg was very tired.