Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/91

Rh when our little friend saw them she left her game and ran back to the garden to look after her little brother, when what was her grief to find him missing. She searched and searched all over the place, but in vain; he was nowhere to be found!

"Perhaps those horrid red flamingoes have stolen him!" she thought.

So she ran out into the fields as fast as ever her legs could carry her, in hopes of overtaking the flamingoes, when, greatly to her surprise, she saw a stove standing in a field with a quantity of cakes and things baking on it.

"Stove! stove!" she cried, "can you tell me whither the flamingoes have gone?"

"Yes," replied the stove; "but first eat one of my cakes, and then I will tell you where they have gone."

But the little girl was in too great a hurry to think of eating anything.

"We don't eat any pastry at home," she answered, and ran on farther, until she came in sight of an apple-tree.

"Apple-tree, apple-tree!" she cried, "can you tell me where the flamingoes have flown to?"

"First eat one of my apples," answered the tree. But the little girl replied as before,—

"We eat no apples at home," and ran on until she came to a river of milk, the banks of which were of jelly.

"Milky river and jelly banks, tell me, oh! tell me, whither the flamingoes have flown?"

But they replied,—