“O, do!”
“Well, Midget, you see, is an odd little fellow. He has long, light hair, which the other boys on the street would make fun of if they were not so fond of him; a rather pale face, though it is browner now, after half a summer in the country; and big blue eyes, that seem like bits of sky that baby Midget caught on his way down from heaven, ten years ago, and never lost.
“Last September, Midget was at Crawford’s, in the White Mountains: and one bright morning he took a walk, all alone, in a path that runs beside a little brook leaping down the mountain-side near the hotel. Now there is this curious thing about Midget—and that’s why I began by calling him odd—namely, that when he is alone, all sorts of things about him begin to talk; at least, he says they do, with a funny twinkle and a sweet look in his blue eyes, which make me half believe that the talk he hears comes from heaven too. At any rate, Midget had a wonderful report to make of his walk that morning; and, as nearly as I can remember, this was his account:
“He said he had not gone far into the forest when he was startled, for a moment, by hearing a group of children, somewhere in the woods, all laughing and talking together, and having the merriest time possible. Through the tumult of their happy cries he could distinguish a woman’s voice, so deep and musical and tender that it filled him with delight. He hurried up the path, turned the corner where he expected to find them, and behold! it was the brook itself talking and laughing.
“Every separate tiny waterfall had its own special voice, as different from the rest as could be, but all chiming together musically and joining with the grander undertone of what most people suppose to be merely a larger cataract, but which Midget plainly perceived was a tall, lovely lady, with flowing, fluttering robes of white.
“And now she was singing to him. How he listened! Her song, he says, was something like this:
Down from the mosses that grow in the clouds
My children come dancing and laughing in crowds;
They dance to the valleys and meadows below,
And make the grass greener wherever they go.