Part One

The Doll under the Briar Rosebush

There was once a little girl, and her name was Beate. She was only five years old, but a bright and good little girl she was.

On her birthday her father had given her a beautiful straw hat. There were red ribbons around it, I can't tell you how pretty it was. Her mother had given her a pair of yellow shoes and the daintiest white dress. But her old aunt had given her the very best present of all; it was a doll, with a sweet pretty face and dark brown curls. She was a perfect beauty in every respect. There was nothing the matter with her except that the left eyebrow was painted a tiny bit too high up.

"It looks as if she were frowning a little. I wonder if she is not quite pleased?" asked Beate, when she held her in her arms.

"Oh, yes," answered her aunt, "but she doesn't know you yet. It is a habit she has of always lifting her eyebrow a little when she looks closely at anyone. She only wants to find out if you are a good little girl."

"Yes, yes, and now she knows, for now that eyebrow is just like the other one," said Beate.

Oh, how Beate grew to love that doll, almost more than she loved Marie and Louise, and they were her best friends.

One day Beate was walking in the yard with her doll in her arms. The doll had a name now, and they had become fast friends. She had called her Beate, her own name, and the name of her old aunt who had given her the doll.

It was in the early spring. There was a beautiful green spot, with fine, soft grass in one corner of the yard around the old well. There stood a big willow tree with a low trunk, and it was covered with the little yellow blossoms that children call goslings.

They look like goslings too, for each little tassel has soft, soft yellow down, and they can swim in the water, but walk?--no, that they cannot do.

Now Big Beate--she wasn't more than five years old, but she was ever so much bigger than the other one--and Little Beate, soon agreed that they would pick goslings from the tree and throw them into the well, so that they might have just as good a time as the big geese and goslings that were swimming about in the pond. It was really Big Beate who thought of this first, but Little Beate agreed immediately; you can't imagine how good she always was.

Now Big Beate climbed up into the willow and picked many pretty yellow goslings into her white apron, and when she counted them and had counted to twenty, twice, she said that now they had enough, and Little Beate thought so too.

So she began to climb down, but that was not easy for she had to hold her apron together with one hand and climb with the other. She thought Little Beate called up to her to throw the goslings down first, but she didn't dare to do that; she was afraid they might fall and hurt themselves.

Now both of them ran over to the well, and Big Beate helped her little friend to get her legs firmly fixed between the logs that were around the well, so that she might sit in comfort and watch the little goslings swim about on the water. Then gosling after gosling was dropped down, and as soon as each one reached the water it seemed to become alive and it moved about. Oh, what fun! Big Beate clapped her hands to the pretty little downy birds, and when she helped Little Beate a bit, she too could clap her hands.

But after awhile the little goslings would not swim any longer but lay quite still. That was no fun at all, so Big Beate asked her namesake if she didn't think she might lean a little over the edge of the well and blow on them, for then she thought they might come to life again. Little Beate didn't answer, but she raised her left eyebrow a good deal and moved her right arm in the air as if she were saying, "Please don't do that, dear Big Beate! Don't you remember Mother has told us how dark it is down there in the well? Think, if you should fall in!"

"Oh, nonsense; just see how easy it is," said Big Beate, for she thought the goslings were stupid when they didn't want to swim about. She leaned out over the well and blew on the nearest ones--Yes, it helped--the goslings began to swim again. But those that were farthest away didn't move at all.

"What stupid little things!" said Beate, and she leaned far, far out over the edge of the well. Then her little hands slipped on the smooth log and--splash! in she fell deep down into the water. It was so cold, so icy cold, and it closed over her head and took the straw hat, which she had got on her birthday, off her hair. She hadn't time to hear if Little Beate screamed, but I'm sure she did.

When Beate's head came over the water again she grasped the round log with both her hands but the hands were too small and the log too wide and slippery, she couldn't hold on. Then she saw her dear friend, Little Beate, standing stiff and dumb with fright, staring at her and with her right arm stretched out to her. Big Beate hurriedly caught hold of her and Little Beate made herself as stiff as she could, and stiffer still, and stood there between the logs holding her dear friend out of the water.

Now Beate screamed so loudly that her father and mother heard her and came running as fast as they could, pale and frightened, and pulled her out. She was dripping wet and so scared and cold that her teeth chattered.

The father ran to the house with her, but she begged him for heaven's sake not to leave Little Beate, for she might fall into the well, "And it's she who has saved me."

Now they put Beate to bed and Little Beate had to sleep with her. When she had said her prayers she hugged her little friend and said, "Never, never can I thank you enough, because you saved me from that horrible deep well, dear Little Beate. Of course, I know that our Lord helped you to stand firm between the logs, and to make yourself so strong and stiff, but it was you, and no one else who stretched your hand out to me, so that I was not drowned. And therefore you shall be my very best friend, always, and when I grow up you shall be the godmother to my first daughter, and I shall call her Little Beate for you." Then she kissed the little one and slept.