"You were mistaken, dear," said her father, looking at her with his gentle, sorrowful eyes. "You could not have found the true end of the rainbow, nor the true Pot of Gold--that is surely full of the most beautiful gold pieces, with an angel stamped on every one."
"You had better go into your mother, Flax," said her father; "she will be anxious to see you. I know better than you about the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow."
So Flax went sorrowfully into the house. There was the tea-kettle singing beside the "skettle," which had some nice smelling soup in it, the table was laid for supper, and there sat her mother with the baby in her lap and the others all around her--just as they had looked in the Pot of Gold.
Flax had never been so glad to see them before--and if she didn't hug and kiss them all!
"I found the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow, mother," cried she, "and it was not full of gold, at all; but you and father and the children looked out of it at me, and I saw the house and garden and everything in it."
Her mother looked at her lovingly. "Yes, Flax dear," said she.
"But father said I was mistaken," said Flax, "and did not find it."
"Well dear," said her mother, "your father is a poet, and very wise; we will say no more about it. You can sit down here and hold the baby now, while I make the tea."
Flax was perfectly ready to do that; and, as she sat there with her darling little baby brother crowing in her lap, and watched her pretty little brothers and sisters and her dear mother, she felt so happy that she did not care any longer whether she found the true Pot of Gold or not.
But, after all, do you know, I think her father was mistaken, and that she had.
[F] From "The Pot of Gold and Other Stories," by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company; used by special arrangement.
"Get up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning wheel, For your father's on the hill, and your mother is asleep: Come up above the crags, and we'll dance a Highland reel Around the fairy thorn on the steep."
At Anna Grace's door, 't was thus the maidens cried-- Three merry maidens fair, in kirtles of the green; And Anna laid the sock and the weary wheel aside-- The fairest of the four, I ween.