MINNIE'S WINGS.
Now came the most beautiful and happiest part of Minnie's wandering
life. So nimble was she, and ready for sport, and so droll, and withal
so gentle and ready to oblige, that she made friends on every side.
Wherever she went you'd be sure to find a flock of butterflies, or bees,
or birds, about her.
They taught her all the pretty sports which they had practised among
themselves; once more she flew across the meadows with the birds, fed on
the fresh, clear honey of the bee, and played hide-and-seek with
butterflies.
Sometimes the butterflies lifted her far up into the air. How do you
suppose they contrived to do it, with their slender wings, which even
the wind could break?
Minnie told them that, in her father's house stood a statue, with wings
on the wrists and feet. This was Mercury, whom the Greeks in old times
worshipped as one of their many gods.
Now, she thought the butterflies might make a little Mercury of her. No
sooner had she said as much than a beautiful pair, spreading wings large
enough for sails to her lily-leaf boat, floated through the sunshine to
settle upon the little woman's shoulders. Then followed smaller ones,
with blue, white, and yellow wings; and, fastening themselves to her
ankles and wrists, up, up, they all flew together!
But the next day Minnie found her little friends creeping about with
their wings sadly sprained. So she would not often let them repeat this
experiment.
O, I should have to write a larger book than this to tell you what good
times Minnie had with the butterflies; into what pleasant places they
were always leading her; how gentle and playful they were, and how their
wings were perfumed with the flowers they had lived among.
She loved to have them follow her when she walked, especially that
little golden kind you have often seen in the meadows. Some followed,
some fluttered on before, as if she were a little queen, and they her
body-guard.
There were no angry voices now, no envious neighbors; no Master Squirrel
came to repeat disagreeable stories. Instead of that stifled
squirrel-hole in the elm, she had the sweet air of heaven about her now.
Instead of that crowded yellow-bird's nest, where Minnie had felt in the
way, she had now the wide meadow, with room enough in its soft, green
lining, for herself and all her friends.
But, alas! Minnie was the one, this time, to cause trouble and
discontent. Only to gratify her wilful temper, she did what she would
have given half the world to undo afterwards. It was a little
thing,--you would hardly call it wicked; and yet it grieved and drove
away her gentle friends, and would have cost her own life, but for an
accident. These _little things_ make half the mischief in the world.