little figure come trudging home again! Then they would run to
meet her, and Jan would take the wheelbarrow from her tired hands and
wheel it for her over the bridge to the little cottage under the willow
trees on the other side of the river.

Then Marie's work was to clean the barrow, while Jan pulled weeds in
the tiny garden back of the house, and Granny got supper ready.
Supper-time was the best of all, for every pleasant evening they ate at
a little table out of doors under the willow trees.

One evening, when supper had been cleared away, they sat there
together, with Fidel beside them, while Granny told a wonderful tale
about the King of the Eels who lived in a crystal palace at the bottom
of the river.

"You can't quite see the palace," she said, "because, when you look
right down into it, the water seems muddy. But sometimes, when it is
still, you can see the Upside-Down Country where the King of the Eels
lives. There the trees all grow with their heads down and the sky is
'way, 'way below the trees. You see the sky might as well be down as up
for the eels. They aren't like us, just obliged to crawl around on the
ground without ever being able to go up or down at all. The up-above
sky belongs to the birds and the down-below sky belongs to the fishes
and eels. And I am not sure but one is just as nice as the other."

Marie and Jan went to the river, and, getting down on their hands and
knees, looked into the water.

"We can't see a thing!" they cried to Granny.

"You aren't looking the right way," she answered. "Look across it
toward the sunset."

"Oh! Oh!" cried Marie, clasping her hands; "I see it! I see the
down-below sky, and it is all red and gold!"

"I told you so," replied Granny triumphantly. "Lots of folks can't see
a thing in the river but the mud, when, if you look at it the right
way, there is a whole lovely world in it. Now, the palace of the King
of the Eels is right over in that direction where the color is the
reddest. He is very fond of red, is the King of the Eels. His throne is
all made of rubies, and he makes the Queen tie red bows on the tails of
all the little eels."

Jan and Marie were still looking with all their eyes across the still
water toward the sunset and trying to see the crystal palace of the
eels, when suddenly from behind them there came a loud "Hee-haw,
hee-haw." They jumped, and Granny jumped, too, and they all looked
around to see where the sound came from. There,