Down the Snow Stairs. Alice Abigail Corkran

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      “Punished! No, they are petted!” the queer creature replied, rolling itself round and round with laughing.

      “I think I should like to go,” said Kitty.

      “Come along; I’ll take you. It is the most comical place you ever saw;” and the goat-legged being sprang to its feet.

      Kitty got up.

      Her play-fellow opened the wicket-gate, and they passed out together into a broad and flowery path hand in hand.

      Skip, skip, down the path they went together.

      Skip, skip, through a lovely wood where grew all Kitty’s favorite flowers. Honeysuckles garlanded the way, and thrust out their waxen blossoms like fingers to catch them as they passed. Wild roses, that looked like fallen stars on the bushes; little pools of blue hyacinths, hosts of golden king-cups, ox-lips, and daisies lined the road.

      Skip, skip, past a stream on which the water-lilies floated. Dragon-flies darted zigzag like jewels writing on the air. Butterflies hovered, birds sang. Red squirrels ran up trees and stopped cracking their nuts to look at them. A gray field-mouse peered out, moving its tiny mouth incessantly as if talking to itself. The trees rustled; the shadows waved as the breeze rocked the boughs.

      Skip, skip, first on one cloven foot and one tiptoe, then on the other cloven foot and the other tiptoe, went Kitty’s guide and Kitty followed.

      Suddenly they came to the oddest place Kitty had ever seen. It was right in the center of the wood on the other side of a ditch. They paused to look at it.