ALONE IN THE WOOD.
Her flowers safe in the water, the little girl seated herself on a stone
that seemed made purposely for her, it was cushioned so softly with
moss; and overhead the boughs of the great trees bent towards her, and
rustled and waved like so many fans, and shut her in so closely from the
rest of the wood that you might have passed close by, and never guessed
she was there.
The kitten went fast asleep in her lap, and Violet, folding her hands,
looked up among the leaves, and across where the boughs parted a little
into the wood, and down at her feet, where the grass grew so long and
fine, and was sprinkled over with such pretty little leaves--as tiny,
some of them, as Violet's finger nails, and yet as beautifully scolloped
or pointed, and as perfectly finished, as the stoutest laurel or
broadest oak leaf in the wood; and, noticing this, Violet wondered if
God, who had taken as much pains in making little leaves as big ones,
had not taken as much pains with, and didn't care as much for, little
_people_ as big ones.
Who knew but he loved her, in her ragged dress, just as well as Narcissa
in all her finery, or even the tall, rich doctor, who tried to mend
Toady's leg?
Then she listened, and felt how still it was there alone with the trees;
and the sweet, low sounds that came through this stillness were
beautiful as music.
Far off she could hear the cool, sparkling brook foaming and hurrying
over its stony bed; and then the air came breathing through the trees,
as if they sighed for joy; and each leaf trembled, and seemed rising to
meet the air and fly away with it, and then, falling back again, nestled
closer to its neighbor leaves, and whispered softly, as if it were
making love to them.
But there came a louder rustling among the boughs, and a flutter of
wings, and then burst forth a clear, wild song, so near that Violet held
her breath; for a golden oriole had alighted close beside her, and
chirped, and twittered, and trilled, as if he meant to say aloud what
the leaves and the brook had been whispering.
When he paused, the leaves all clapped their hands for more; and oriole
understood them, for he gave another and another song, waiting between
each to wet his bill in some bunch of bright, juicy berries.
Violet did not suspect that the reason the sunshine looked so bright,
and the shadows so cool and refreshing, and the leaves and brook so wide
awake and so musical, was because the good fairies Love and Contentment
were watching over her; and the beautiful purple light from Love's
wings, and from Contentment's starry crown, and the fragrance from her
lily urn, would make any, the dullest place, bright.
But as the bird flew away, Fairy Love whispered inside of Violet's
heart, "The bird has gone to her nest. Isn't it time for Violet to be
thinking about _her_ nest, and the good mother, who will be there first
if she does not make haste and run home?"
Love's voice was lower than the whisper of the leaves or the far-off
murmur of the brook; but the little girl heard and obeyed it for all
that.