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
And when the week was over Eva presented herself to the Green Frog,
and asked for her wages. And then the old Frog asked her what she
wanted. And Eva did as the Toad-Woman had told her, and said she would
like to go and consult her mother. This she was allowed to do, and Eva
returned, by the same road by which the brown toad had led her, to the
grotto behind the Cascade of Rocks.
There sat the Toad-Woman, fanning herself, just as if she had never
moved since Eva first saw her. And she knew all about the work Eva had
to do without Eva’s telling her. She told Eva to ask for the little
green coat which hung at the head of her mistress’s bed (if you can
call a pool of water a bed). “She will refuse you,” the woman went on,
“but you must insist. You have earned it, and will get it in the end.”
Eva thanked her, and then returned to the hut. And sitting in the door
was the Frog; and she said to her that she was ready for her wages.
“What am I to give you?” croaked the Frog.
“Nothing but the little green coat which hangs at the head of your bed.”
Then the Frog told her that she could not give her that, and offered
her all sorts of beautiful things instead. But Eva insisted upon
having the little green coat; and as fairies--even when they are bad
fairies--are compelled to keep their promises or else lose their power,
the Frog had to keep her word; and she told Eva that if she could find
the little coat she might have it.
So Eva went into the hut and looked over the pool in which the
Frog slept; and hanging against the wall were little green coats
innumerable, which surprised Eva, for she never had seen anything
hanging there before; and they all looked so much alike that she did
not know which to choose. Then it seemed to her that a mist gathered
in her eyes, and she raised her hand to rub it away, and then she saw,
sitting on one of the little green coats, a beautiful, pure white
moth; and then Eva saw that the other coats were only shadows, and the
one on which the white moth sat was Aster’s coat. So she took it down,
and the moth never moved,--and then it spoke:
“Do you remember the tiny worm that you saved from the crawling twig?
I was that worm; and this is the first opportunity I have had to thank
you for saving my life, and the best service I could render you was
this.”
And without waiting to be thanked, the white moth spread her wings and
was gone.
The Green Frog was angry enough when she saw that Eva had chosen
rightly. But there was nothing to be done, only she grumbled to herself
and said,--she did not know that Eva heard her:
“The coat is useless without the piece.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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