Chapter XXVI: Hide-And-Seek

One afternoon, tired of playing in the hot sun, Minnie thought she would creep under some shady cluster of leaves, and sleep.

But the butterflies could never have play enough, and the hotter the sunshine, the better for them. So they did not understand that the little girl needed rest, and, thinking her weariness only make-believe, would not give her any peace.

They ran across her hands, they tickled her cheeks with their feathery feelers, they pelted her with buttercups, and at last began to cover her over with leaves of the wild rose. So full of mischief were they, that one could no more sleep, while they were about, than if they'd been so many bees.

At first Minnie tried to be good-natured, and laugh at their pranks; but, warm and tired as she was, you cannot wonder that her patience didn't last.

Some children would have roughly driven the butterflies away--have pelted them with stones, perhaps, and broken their beautiful wings. But Minnie could not forget how kind they had been; and besides, you know, they were not such little things to her as they seem to us; they were almost as large as herself.

She only arose, and, turning her back, would not speak to them, or spoke in such a snappish manner that the butterflies were frightened, and flew away.

Left alone, she espied, near the wood, something that looked like a side-saddle, just large enough for a little body like herself. She sprang to see if there were a tiny horse to fit, and thought how quickly he should gallop off with her, so far that the butterflies could not follow--no, not if they wore their wings off!

But the saddle proved only to be a flower, so much like a wadded leather cushion, that Minnie took her seat upon it, and was swaying back and forth with its tall, stiff stem, when she noticed that it was surrounded by a row of leaves more curious, even, than the flower.

Each leaf was like a little pitcher, with such great ears that Minnie wondered if it were not the very kind she had heard her mother talk about, when she was whispering secrets. There they stood, like the forty jars in which Ali-Baba caught the forty thieves, in the Arabian Nights.

"Here's a place to hide!" She had hardly said it, when the butterflies came in sight, and Minnie slipped into the tallest pitcher, unseen by them, she thought.

But no--they found her; and now was Minnie's time to laugh. Fold their wide wings together, crumple them as they might, not one of the butterflies could crowd himself through the narrow neck of the pitcher. They could only stand and look down wistfully at the roguish face within.

"I'm glad to see you! shake hands!" said Minnie, shaking their slender wrists till they begged her to be still.

"Ah! Minnie, not so rough! Come, now, don't be cross any longer. Come out and play with us!"

"Don't you wish I would? Don't you wish you could catch me?" was all the answer she made.

"But we've found a bee that a bird killed, and we saved the honey-bag for you."

In vain they urged. Minnie was very stubborn. She laughed at the butterflies, and teased them, until they were offended, and, one by one, flew back to the brook.

And, now that she had leisure to look about, the little girl found herself in an uncomfortable place. Not only was the pitcher half full of water, but so narrow that she could hardly move, and lined with stiff hairs, that seemed like thorns to tiny hands like hers. She would not stay here.

But how to escape was the question! She only climbed the sides to slip back again; her arms were scratched till they bled; her garments were heavy with the water in which they drabbled. Night was coming down; she could hear the crickets sing; she caught glimpses of birds flying home to their nests; yet all were so noisy or so busy that they could not hear her voice.

How she wished, now, that her rudeness had not driven the butterflies away! But it was too late for such wishes; they had gone.