"I love the sun in the big blue sky,
As he rolls along his pathway high,
Through the clouds and over the blue
While he brightly shines on me and you.
There's no one else that I love so much
As the golden sun with his soft warm touch."

And then all the sunflowers joined in the chorus:

"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful sun,
We turn and follow you as you run
Over the soft and azure sky;
Beautiful sun with your golden eye."

When the song was finished, little Mary Louise went on her way, and it
was very lucky for her that the grass was soft, for she wore no boots,
which I forgot to mention she had left a the foot of the big giant
sunflower by the side of the poor woodman's hut.

Well, by and by, she came to a little shoemaker's shop, where the
shoemaker sat just outside the door.

"Have you a pair of red top boots?" she asked. And would you believe
it? That shoemaker got up and walked inside his shop and took down a
box from the top shelf, and there inside was a beautiful pair of red
top boots, which fitted as if they had been made for her. Well wasn't
that the luckiest thing that could have happened?

But perhaps it was just as lucky that she found money enough in her
pocket to pay for them.

Pretty soon, not so very far, she came to a fountain where all day long
the water played a soft little song:

"Over the pebbles and over the sand
I run till I reach the sea-shore land,
Where the pink shells sing and the big waves roar,
And the mermaids comb their hair on the shore."

"I think I'll follow this pretty book," said Mary Louise, "and maybe it
will take me home."

She ran along its mossy banks until she came to the seashore. Right
there on the soft warm sand sat a mermaid combing her long hair.

With a glad cry Mary Louise ran towards her. But it wasn't her friend
the Mermaid Princess. No, she was a strange little mermaid, who gave a
frightful scream and with a flop of her graceful tail, glided into the
water. Just as she was about to dive down out of sight, she saw her
pretty pearl comb on the beach.

"Don't be afraid of me," said Mary Louise, picking it up and leaning
over the water. "I know your Princess Mermaid--daughter of King
Seaphus," and she handed the little mermaid the pearly comb, who then
swam away to her island of coral and pearl.

"Heigh ho," sighed little Mary Louise, "here I am by the sad sea waves
with nobody to talk to," and as she had nothing to do,