Linda looked round, but no one was to be seen.
Then Linda looked down, and seated upon a stone she saw a carrot whose green top-knot of leaves she had broken off. Two little legs and two little arms had sprouted out, and it had eyes and a mouth, but no nose.
“Have you no feelings?” said the carrot. “Is it not enough to be taken from my home in the earth, without being knocked about and flung into a duck-pond? How would you like it?”
“You don’t care for any one but yourself,” replied the carrot, growing redder and redder; “no one likes you, not even carrots, and you will find that some day people will pay you back for being so selfish. I am going to begin at once. Come carrots, carrots, carrots!” he shouted.
“In and out Whirl about; Pinch and beat her; Let her know Selfishness will bring her woe; Come at once and greet her.”
Then suddenly all the carrots that were lying about sprang up, and those that were in the duck-pond sprang out of it. They were joined by those in the gardens near, and they came trooping along like an army. They could walk as well in the air as on the ground; and they whirled around Linda and pulled her hair and pinched her arms, till she cried aloud for mercy.
“Ho! ho! ho! only see What it is our foe to be,”
shouted the carrots, as they twirled up and down and round and round.
[Illustration: “HAVE YOU NO FEELINGS?” SAID THE CARROT]
The air was full of carrots, and the ground was covered by them, and Linda made up her mind that if she ever got clear of them she would never meddle with a carrot again as long as she lived. She kept off their blows as long as she could, but at last she was too tired to do so any longer, and she sank down to the ground crying, “Oh, please leave off! please leave off!”
“We now have done, But we’ve had some fun,”
said the carrot who had first spoken to her.
“Carrots, depart,” said he, waving his hand.
The last carrot had said “Good-by,” but Linda had not spoken.
She waited till she thought he had gone, and then she looked up. The carrot certainly was not there, but a large cat was sitting beside her.
But Topsy put up her back, and her eyes looked very fierce.
“Poor Topsy, indeed!” said the cat, angrily; “don’t think to coax me, you never think of me in the house, you pull my whiskers and my tail, and you never give me a bit of meat, or anything nice that you are eating; and this morning, though I sat on the chair beside you, longing for a little new milk, you drank it all up--you did not leave me a drop. You are the most selfish little girl I know, and I don’t like you, so I am going to scratch you.”