Eva's Adventures in Shadow-LandNauman, Mary D. (Mary Dummett)
Science
Eva's Adventures in Shadow-Land
Nauman, Mary D. (Mary Dummett)
Children's stories; Fairies -- Juvenile fiction; Fantasy fiction
She held up her fan as she said this, and Eva saw that two feathers
out of it were gone. And then the child remembered the two feathers
which the jackdaw had dropped in the boat, and which, as the trout had
advised her, she had brought with her from the brook. So she showed
them to the woman, and asked her if these were not the same ones which
she had lost. And the Toad-Woman was very much astonished, for they
were the very feathers she had been talking about.
“Take a seat,” she said to Eva, “and tell me how you got them.”
And then a great big brown toad hopped out of his hole when he heard
his mistress say this, bringing a three-legged stool on his back. He
put it down before Eva, and then went back to his hole, and Eva sat
down on the stool and looked at the Toad-Woman.
“Now, tell me about it,” said the Toad-Woman.
So Eva had to begin at the beginning and tell the whole story. And
every time that she said anything about the green toad the old woman
would nod her head, as much as to say, “I know all about that.” But she
never interrupted Eva; only when she was done she said to her:
“I am the only person who can help you now, and as you brought me back
my feathers, I will do what I can for you. The Green Frog, who has done
all this harm, is a distant cousin of mine, but she delights in doing
mischief, and we have not been friends since her servant the jackdaw
stole the feathers out of my fan. She it is who has got Aster, and you
cannot find him until you get his coat, and the piece of it. You will
have to work for them, for I cannot help you there; all I can do for
you will be to send you where she lives.”
Then Eva thanked the Toad-Woman very earnestly, who told her that she
must be content to remain with her for that night, and the next morning
that she would tell her where the Green Frog lived, and what she should
do when she got there.
So that night Eva slept in the grotto behind the Cascade of Rocks. The
Toad-Woman waked her up very early in the morning. She had a dress in
her hand, just the color of mud, which she told Eva to put on.
“Leave your white dress here with me,” she said. “Because you will
have to deal with the things and the inhabitants of Shadow-Land, and
it would, if it touched them, change them all into mists and shadows.
Then, too, you must not be recognized.”
Then the Toad-Woman tied Eva’s head up in a cap, so as to hide all her
golden curls, and made her wash her face and hands in some water which
she gave her. Then she told her to go and look at herself in a little
pool of water which was just outside of the grotto, and Eva could not
help laughing when she saw herself, for face, hands, cap, and dress
were all the same color.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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