Snow White 3
"Well, I can't wait!" she said, decidedly. "First place, Snow-white
didn't, not a minute she didn't wait. And besides, I'm too hungry, and
I s'pose everything is ready and waiting inside, and so I'll go."
She advanced boldly across the green, but paused again at the door. No
sound came from the house. The creepers waved on the roof, the birds
made an amazed and amazing chatter in the great buttonwood-tree; but
that was all. The child pushed the door, the latch yielded, and the
door swung slowly open. Two steps, and she stood inside.
Even the very bravest child may be excused for feeling a little
strange in such a house as this. She felt her heart beating in her
ears, and her throat was dry; but as she looked about her, everything
was so perfectly right that her sense of fitness asserted itself once
more, and she was content and glad. The room in which she stood was
not large, except for dwarfs; for them it would be a great hall. It
was floored and walled with clean, shining wood, and there were two
doors, one at either end. There was an open fire-place, in which two
black iron dogs with curly tails held up some logs of wood that were
smouldering and purring in a comfortable way, as if they had been
lighted more for pleasure than for warmth. Near the fire stood an
easy-chair, and another chair was drawn up by a table that stood in
the window. It was on seeing this table that the child began to fear
all was not quite right. It was a neat little table, just about high
enough for dwarfs, if they were not very short dwarfs; it was laid with
a snowy cloth, as they always are; but--where were the seven places?
there was only one at this table. There was a plate, a knife and fork,
a cup and saucer, a little loaf of bread and a little pat of butter, a
pitcher of milk, and a comb of golden honey. What did this mean?
"Well, I can't help it," said the child, suddenly. "If they is gone
away all but one of them, I can't help it; they shouldn't play that
way, and I'm hungry. Just I'll take a little bit, as Snow-white did.
Just that's what I'll do!"
She seated herself at the table, and poured some milk into the cup.
Oh, how good it was! She broke off a bit of bread, and nibbled it; her
spirits rose, and she began to feel again that she was having the most
splendid time that ever was. She broke out into her song--
"And I comed away,
_And_ I runned away,
And I said I thought I did not--"
Then she stopped, for the door of the further room opened quietly, and
the dwarf came in.
CHAPTER III.
THE MAN.
The child's song broke off in a little scream, for things are sometimes
startling even when you have been expecting them; but the scream
bubbled into a laugh. "Ah! I--I mean I'm laughing because you look so
funny. I took some bread and milk because I was hungry." She stopped
abruptly, feeling that sob somewhere about her again. The dwarf
advanced toward her, and she held on to the back of the chair; but he
held out his hand and smiled.
"How do you do?" he said. "I am very glad to see you; pray sit down
again and finish your supper."
"It's your supper," said the child, who was honest. "I didn't mean to
steal it; I don't know p'r'aps there isn't enough for both of us." She
had a way of leaving out words in her sentences that sometimes confused
people, but the dwarf seemed to understand.
"There's plenty for both!" he said. "Come! I'll sit down here, and you
shall give me some milk. I am hungry, too. Have some honey!" He nodded
at her, and smiled again; he had the most delightful smile the child
had ever seen. Somebody once said you could warm yourself at it as
at a fire. The child took a piece of bread, and looked at him over it
as she nibbled. He was not a tiny dwarf, not one of the kind that get
into flowers, and fight with grass-blades, and that sort of thing. No,
indeed! he was just a little man; why, he was taller than she was,
though not so very much taller. He had brown hair and a soft brown
beard; his eyes were brown, too, and full of light. All brown and gray,
for his dress was gray and soft, "kind of humplety velvet," the child
said to herself, though it was really only corduroy. He seemed all of
a piece with the house, and the gray rock behind it. Now he looked at
her, and smiled again.
"You look as if you were wondering something very much," he said. "Have
some more milk! What are you wondering?"
"Partly I was wondering where the rest of you was!" said the child.
"The rest of me?" said the man. "There isn't any more of me. This is
all there is. Don't you think it's enough?" He smiled still, but this
time it was only his mouth, and his eyes looked dark, as if something
hurt him.
"I mean the others," the child explained. "The rest of the seven. I
guess it's six, p'r'aps. There was seven of 'em where Snow-white came
to, you know."
"Seven what?" asked the man.
"Dwarfs!" said the child.
"Oh!" said the man.
He was silent for a moment, as if he were thinking; then he laughed,
and the child laughed, too. "Isn't it funny?" she said. "What are you
laughing at?"
"Yes, it is funny!" said the man. "Why, you are just like Snow-white,
aren't you? but there aren't any more dwarfs. I'm the only one there is
here."
The child thought that was a pity. "You could have much more fun if
there were seven of you," she said. "Why don't you get some more?" Then
suddenly recollecting herself, she added, hastily, "I never did cook,
but I can stir porridge, and dust I can, too, and I 'spect I could make
your bed, 'cause it wouldn't be so big, you see. I tried to make beds,
but I get all mixed up in the sheets, and the blankets are horrid, and
I never know which is the wrong side of the spread. So you see!"
"I see!" said the man.
"But I 'spect I could make yours, don't you? Should you mind if once I
didn't get the spread right, you know?"
"Not a bit. Besides, I don't like spreads. We'll throw it away."
"Oh, let's!" said the child. "Hurrah! Do you say hurrah?"
"Hurrah!" said the man. "Do you mind if I smoke a pipe?"
No, the child did not mind at all. So he brought a most beautiful pipe,
and filled and lighted it; then he sat down, and looked at the child
thoughtfully.
"I suppose you ought to tell me where you came from," he said. "It
isn't half so much fun, but I suppose they will be missing you at home,
don't you? Your mamma--"
The child hastened to explain. Her mamma was away, had gone quite away
with her papa, and left her, the child, alone with Miss Tyler and the
nurse. Now Miss Tyler was no kinds of a person to leave a child wiz;
she poked and she fussed, and she said it was shocking whenever you did
anything, but just anything at all except sit still and learn hymns. "I
hate hymns!" said the child.
"So do I!" said the man, fervently. "It's a pity about Miss Tyler.
Where is it you came from, Snow-white?"
"Oh! it's somewhere else; a long way off. I can't go back there. Dwarfs
never send people back there; they let them stay and do the work. And
I'm almost as big as you are!" the child ended, with a little quaver.
"So you are," said the man. "Now we'll wash the dishes, and forget all
about it for to-night, anyhow."
It was glorious fun washing the dishes, such pretty dishes, blue and
white, with houses and birds on them. They went into the kitchen
through one of the doors, and there all the things were bright and
shining, as if they were made of silver. The child asked the dwarf if
they were really silver, but he said oh, dear, no, only Britannia. That
sounded like nonsense, because the child knew that Britannia ruled the
waves, her papa sang a song about it; but she thought perhaps dwarfs
didn't understand about that, so she said nothing. The dwarf brought
a little cricket, and she stood on that and wiped the dishes while he
washed them; and he said he never liked washing them so much before,
and she said she never liked wiping them so much. Everything was as
handy as possible. The dish-pan was as bright as the rest of the
things, and there were plenty of clean towels, and when you shook the
soap-shaker about, it made the most charming bubbles in the clean hot
water.
"Do you ever make bubbles in your pipe?" said the child.
"Not in this one," said the dwarf. "I used to have a pipe for them;
perhaps I can find one for you by and by."
"I made bubbles in the river," she announced, polishing a glass
vigorously. "There was a stone, and I sat on it, and bubbles I made wiz
kicks, you know, in the water; and songs I made, too, and the river
went bubble, too, all the time. There was a frog, too, and he came and
said things to me, but I kicked at him. He wasn't the Frog Prince,
'cause he had no gold spots on him. Do you know the Frog Prince? Does
he live here in this river? Do you have gold balls when you play ball?"
"I'll get one," said the dwarf, recklessly. "It's no fun playing ball
alone, but now we'll have one, I shouldn't wonder. How far did you come
along the river, Snow-white?"
"Miles!" said Snow-white.
"And didn't you have shoes and stockings when you started?"
Yes, the child had had shoes and stockings, but she took them off to
see her toes make dust-toes in the dust. Did ever the dwarf do that? It
was fun! She left them away back there, miles away, before she came to
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