f creamy-yellow grass. Just beyond a thick woods began, but
was divided from the creamy field by a broad bright strip of color,
like a long flower bed planted with flowers of all kinds and colors
set in all sorts of different patterns--stars, triangles, diamonds,
and squares.

"That's the border," shouted Ann, "and over there somewhere we'll find
the person the Queen said would help us get back to Aunt Jane. Come
on!" As she spoke she bounded off across the field, the two boys after
her, and in less time than it takes to tell it they had run through
the tall yellow grass, jumped the border, and stood upon the edge of
the wood.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XI

THE GOOD DREAMS

A thin screen of bushes was all that hid from the children's eyes the
people whose voices they could hear so plainly.

"Maybe it's some kind of picnic they're having in there," cried Peter,
pushing eagerly forward. "Come on quick!"

"No, you don't, either," whispered Rudolf, catching him and holding
him back. "Don't let's get caught this time, let's peep through first
and see what the people are like."

"Yes, do let's be careful," pleaded Ann. "We don't want to get
arrested again, it's not a bit nice--though I suppose if this is where
the Queen's friend lives, it isn't likely anything so horrid will
happen to us."

"Do stop talking, Ann, and listen. Whoever they are in there, they
are making so much noise they can't possibly hear me, so I'm going to
creep into those bushes and see what I can see."

As he spoke Rudolf carefully parted the bushes at a spot where they
were thin and peeped between the leaves, Ann and Peter crowding each
other to see over his shoulder. They looked into a kind of open glade
not much larger than a good-sized room and walled on all sides by tall
trees and thick underbrush. It had a flooring of soft green turf, and
about in the middle lay a great rock as large as a playhouse. This
rock was all covered over with moss and lichens, and the strange thing
about it was that a neat door had been cut in its side. Before this
door, talking and waving his hands to the crowd that thronged about
him, stood a man--the queerest little man the children had ever seen!
He looked like a collection of stout sacks stuffed very tightly and
tied firmly at the necks. One sack made his head, another larger one
his body, four more his arms and legs. His broad face, though rather
dull, wore a good-humored expres