As she skipped down the village street, she was singing over and over again, “The mountain has made me white again! The mountain has made me white again!” And all the children playing in the street stopped to stare at her, wondering what she meant, and some of them called after her, “Merrimeg! Merrimeg!” But she paid no attention. She ran home, skipping and dancing, and hurried through the cabbage garden and in at the kitchen door. Her little broom was lying on the floor where she had left it. At the back of the fireplace was the pile of dust, exactly where she had swept it. She thought it was queer that the wind which had drawn her up the chimney hadn’t blown away the dust; but there it was. Probably those chimney imps wanted to leave it where her mother would be sure to see it. She snatched up the broom and swept the dust into the dustpan, and you can believe that she didn’t put her head into the fireplace, either; she reached in and swept the dust out into the dustpan and carried it out to the cabbage garden and emptied it. And as she came back into the kitchen her mother came in from the front room and said,---- “Oh, here you are. Where have you been so long? While you were out there was a funny little black girl who came to the door and said she was Merrimeg!” “Yes’m,” said Merrimeg. [Illustration: MERRIMEG AND THE CLOP-CLOP SHOES] _MERRIMEG AND THE CLOP-CLOP SHOES_ It was Sunday morning, and Merrimeg was always good on Sunday. Everybody was in church,--everybody but Merrimeg. Her mother had let her stay at home as a reward, because she had done her sweeping so neatly. The house was empty, and there was not a soul in the village street. Merrimeg was sitting at the front window, looking at pictures in a book and telling herself stories about them. Sometimes she would gaze out of the open window at the sunshine. After a while she stopped talking to herself, and looked up and listened. She was sure that she heard a sound in the street. It was a kind of clop-clop! and it seemed to be coming nearer. She peeped around the corner of the window and looked out. Two pairs of wooden shoes, quite small, were coming down the street side by side, towards her house. Each pair of wooden shoes was walking along in the usual way, but the astonishing thing was that there were no feet in them. There was nobody at all in them. They were walking along all by themselves. Merrimeg opened her eyes wide. She had never seen such a sight as that before. Clop-clop! went the wooden shoes on the hard ground, just as if two people were stepping down the street. But no, there was nothing anywhere in the street but those two pairs of shoes, coming along clop-clop! Merrimeg held her breath and watched to see the shoes go by her window. Clop-clop! they came, sounding plainer and plainer; clop-clop! right up to the door of her house; and when they came to the door, there they stopped.