[Illustration: “The Toad Woman stopped fanning and looked at her.”
_Frontispiece._ Page 125.]
ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND.
CONTAINING
EVA’S ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND.
BY MARY D. NAUMAN.
AND
THE MERMAN AND THE FIGURE-HEAD.
BY CLARA F. GUERNSEY.
TWO VOLUMES IN ONE.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1874.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
LIPPINCOTT’S PRESS,
PHILADELPHIA.
EVA’S ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND.
TO
MY FRIEND
E. W.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
WHAT EVA SAW IN THE POND 9
CHAPTER II.
EVA’S FIRST ADVENTURE 15
CHAPTER III.
THE GIFT OF THE FOUNTAIN 23
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST MOONRISE 30
CHAPTER V.
WHAT ASTER WAS 36
CHAPTER VI.
THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH 45
CHAPTER VII.
ASTER’S MISFORTUNES 52
CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT ASTER DID 63
CHAPTER IX.
THE DOOR IN THE WALL 73
CHAPTER X.
THE VALLEY OF REST 80
CHAPTER XI.
THE MAGIC BOAT 92
CHAPTER XII.
DOWN THE BROOK 104
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ENCHANTED RIVER 119
CHAPTER XIV.
THE GREEN FROG 130
CHAPTER XV.
IN THE GROTTO 145
CHAPTER XVI.
ASTER’S STORY 151
CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST OF SHADOW-LAND 162
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
EVA’S ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND.
CHAPTER I.
_WHAT EVA SAW IN THE POND._
She had been reading fairy-tales, after her lessons were done, all the
morning; and now that dinner was over, her father gone to his office,
the baby asleep, and her mother sitting quietly sewing in the cool
parlor, Eva thought that she would go down across the field to the old
mill-pond; and sit in the grass, and make a fairy-tale for herself.
There was nothing that Eva liked better than to go and sit in the tall
grass; grass so tall that when the child, in her white dress, looped on
her plump white shoulders with blue ribbons, her bright golden curls
brushed back from her fair brow, and her blue eyes sparkling, sat
down in it, you could not see her until you were near her, and then it
was just as if you had found a picture of a little girl in a frame, or
rather a nest of soft, green grass.
All through this tall, wavy grass, down to the very edge of the pond,
grew many flowers,--violets, and buttercups, and dandelions, like
little golden suns. And as Eva sat there in the grass, she filled her
lap with the purple and yellow flowers; and all around her the bees
buzzed as though they wished to light upon the flowers in her lap;
on which, at last,--so quietly did she sit,--two black-and-golden
butterflies alighted; while a great brown beetle, with long black
feelers, climbed up a tall grass-stalk in front of her, which, bending
slightly under his weight, swung to and fro in the gentle breeze which
barely stirred Eva’s golden curls; and the field-crickets chirped, and
even a snail put his horns out of his shell to look at the little girl,
sitting so quietly in the grass among the flowers, for Eva was gentle,
and neither bee, nor butterfly, beetle, cricket, or snail were afraid
of her. And this is what Eva called making a fairy-tale for herself.
But sitting so quietly and watching the insects, and hearing their low
hum around her, at last made Eva feel drowsy; and she would have gone
to sleep, as she often did, if all of a sudden there had not sounded,
just at her feet, so that it startled her, a loud
Croak! croak!
But it frightened the two butterflies; for away they went, floating off
on their black-and-golden wings; and the brown beetle was in so much
of a hurry to run away that he tumbled off the grass-stalk on which he
had been swinging, and as soon as he could regain his legs, crept, as
fast as they could carry him, under a friendly mullein-leaf which grew
near, and hid himself; and the crickets were silent; and the bees all
flew away to their hive; and the snail drew himself and his horns into
his house, so that he looked like nothing in the world but a shell; for
when beetles, and butterflies, and crickets, and bees, and snails hear
this croak! croak! they know that it is time for them to get out of the
way.
And when Eva looked down, there, just at her feet, sat a great green
toad.
She gave him a little push with her foot to make him go away; but
instead of that he only hopped the nearer, and again came--
Croak! croak!
He was entirely too near now for comfort, so the little girl jumped up,
dropping all the flowers she had gathered; and as she stood still for a
moment she thought that she heard the green toad say:
“Go to the pond! Go to the pond!”
It seemed so funny to Eva to hear a toad talk that she stood as still
as a mouse looking at him; and as she looked at him, she heard him say
again, as plain as possible:
“Go to the pond! Go to the pond!”
And then Eva did just exactly what either you or I would have done if
we had heard a great green toad talking to us. She went slowly through
the tall grass down to the very edge of the pond.
But instead of the fishes which used to swim about in the pretty clear
water, and which would come to eat the crumbs of bread she always threw
to them, and the funny, croaking frogs which used to jump and splash
in the water, she saw nothing but the same great green toad, which
had hopped down faster than she had walked, and which was now sitting
on a mossy stone near the bank. And when Eva would have turned away he
croaked again:
“Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!”
And whether Eva wished it or not, she stood by the pond--for she really
could not help it--and looked. And it seemed to her that the sky grew
dark and the water black, as it always does before a rain; and then the
child grew frightened, and would have run away, but that just then, in
the very blackest part of the pond, she saw shining and looking up at
her a little round full moon, with a face in it; and it seemed to her,
strange though you may think it, that the eyes of the face in the moon
winked at her; and then it was gone.
And again Eva would have left the pond, but the green toad, which she
thought had suddenly grown larger, croaked more loudly:
“Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!”
And Eva obeyed, as indeed she could not help doing; and then again, in
the pond, there came and went the little moon-face, only that this time
it was larger, and the eyes winked longer.
For the third time the child would have turned away, frightened at all
these strange doings in the pond; but for the third time the green
toad, larger than ever, croaked:
“Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!”
So, for the third time, Eva looked at the pond; and there, for the
third time, was the shining moon-face, as large now as a real full
moon, though, when Eva looked up, there was no moon shining in the sky
to be reflected in the pond; and then the eyes in the moon-face looked
harder at her, and the toad winked at her; and then the toad was the
moon and the moon was the toad, and both seemed to change places with
each other; and at last both of them shone and winked so that Eva could
not tell them apart; and before she knew what she was doing she lay
down quietly in the tall grass, and the moon in the pond and the green
toad winked at her until she fell asleep.
Then the moon-eyes closed and the shining face faded; and the green
toad slipped quietly off his stone into the water; and still Eva slept
soundly.
And that was what Eva saw in the pond.
[Illustration]