Page:On the Way There (1904).djvu/15

 As the two drew near, they saw that the children were not having such a very good time, after all; for scattered thickly about among them, were a lot of unpleasant looking little dwarfs about ten inches high, and with very ugly faces. The dwarfs did not seem to have any games of their own; but merely spent their time hanging on to the arms or perched upon the shoulders of the children as they played and appeared to be annoying them in every way possible. The children did not pay much attention to them, though they really almost spoiled the fun, being such a weight and hindrance; and besides, every once in a while, one of the dwarfs would bite or kick the child to whose arm it was clinging, or begin to fight with others of its own kind.

Marjorie glanced about and noticed now, that nearly all of the children who were plodding through the swamp, carried one or two, or sometimes even more, of these ugly little fellows; so that, in some cases, they were so hampered that they could scarcely step. It seemed as if the dwarfs could not walk alone; but when a child would shake one off, which was not very often, for they clung most ob-