Page:The Children Who Followed the Piper.djvu/62

 children again, with axes raised and frowns upon their faces, Johnny-Jump-Up swung himself up a tree and flung pine cones at them. Little Meg, the ragpicker, ran away, but Philomena, the countess's daughter, sat down on the ground and began to cry.

Jumping Joan dragged her away to where Meg was hiding under a bush; Johnny-Jump-Up, swinging from branch to branch, came to them. The dwarfs followed them with their axes in their hands, shouting out, "We will chase you into the Dark Forest, we will chase you into the Dark Forest if you don't come back to us." Philomena wept more and more at the thought of the Dark Forest.

And they would have been lost in the Deep Wood, and they would have had to come back to the dwarfs or stray into the Dark Forest if Meg, the little ragpicker, had not done what she had done as they were coming through the wood. She had plucked ragweed and she had pulled it to shreds and she had thrown the shreds