Page 553 - Child's own book

now flew down from the free with her, and placed her upon a
daisy, and there she sat and wept at thinking how ugly she
must be since the cockchafers would net admit her amongst
them, and yet she was the loveliest creature that can be
imagined, as delicate and slender as the sweetest rose-leaf.
Poor little Maja lived through the whole summer all alone
in the wide forest. She wove some blades of grass into a kind
of matting to serve for a hammock, and she hung it up under
a leaf of clover to protect her from the rain; she gathered
sweets from the flowers for her nourishment, and drank the
dew that stood on the leaves every morning. Thus summer and
autumn passed by pleasantly enough; but now came winter,
cold dreary winter! all the birds that had sung to her so
sweetly now ficw away; the trees and flowers had withered;
the laige leaf of clover, under which she had lived, had now
rolled itself up like an awning that’s put by ; and nothing
remained but a yellow withered stalk, and she felt dreadfally
cold, for her clothes were in tatters, and so small and so delicate
as poor Maja was, there seemed every chance of heT being
frozen to death. It now began to snow, and every flake that
fell upon her was as bad as a shovel-full would be to as,
because we are of the natural size, and she was only an inch
high. She then wrapped herself up in a dry leaf, but it cracked
in the middle, and could not make her warm; so she kept
shivering with cold.
Near the forest where she had taken up her Bummer quarters,
lay a larg6 corn-field, only the corn had long since been
removed, and nothing remained but the loose dry stubble that
stood in rows m the frozen soil; and it was like crossing #
huge forest for her to wander through one of these, and she
trembled with cold from head to foot. At last, however, slw
readied the door of a field-mouse, who had burrowed ter