Part 7

"I got on much farther north," said the Polar Bear porter, fanning himself with a large sea shell. "Gracious me, but it's dreadfully hot down here."

"This Caribbean Sea is as full of mountains as New Hampshire and Vermont are, but none of them have caps of snow like that which Mount Washington sometimes wears," said the Mermaid Princess. "Snow wouldn't last a second under this hot sun."

"Where did you learn all this?" asked Mary Louise.

"Oh, I went to the Coral School for Girls," answered the Mermaid Princess, and she sighed, for she suddenly remembered she was a long way from home.

Just then the little Star Fish met a soft little body, much smaller than himself, who invited him to visit her relatives, who live, by millions, in this mountain region.

So off they started for Coraltown, where this little Miss Polyp lived.

Her father and mother, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, were all polyps. They had built the coral islands by fastening themselves to the tops of the mountains under the sea, year after year, and at last their soft bodies had turned into stone. And now you know how these millions of little polyps finally made the small islands that dotted the surface of the water.

After the Star Fish and his little friend had swum away, Mary Louise spied a boat drifting toward them. So she and the Mermaid Princess scrambled inside, and the polar Bear porter hoisted a sail, which he found wrapped around a mast in the bottom of the boat.

"Hip, hurrah, we're off once more," Shouted the Polar Bear, waving his paw, And the Mermaid Princess laughed in glee As he held the tiller and sailed o'er the sea!

By and by the air became colder and the Mermaid said:

"We must be near my father's castle. I think I'll slip into the ocean and swim home."

"Before you go, please comb my hair with your magic comb so that I may be a little girl again," begged Mary Louise; "I don't want to be a mermaid forever."

As soon as the magic pearl comb touched Mary Louise's hair her tail changed into her own little pair of legs.

"Now kiss me good-by," said the little Mermaid Princess, and, with a splash, she disappeared in the ocean.

Wonderland

For a few minutes Mary Louise felt quite lonely. Presently she asked the Polar Bear to be kind enough to land her on the nearest shore.

At once the big kind animal trimmed in his sail and before long they entered a beautiful bay whose dark waters were dotted with the white sails of the fisher boats, and directly in front, climbing up to the sky, a high mountain on which stood a castle, where from a tall tower all night long shone a light that could hardly be told from the stars around it.

Mary Louise jumped from the boat to the beach, and then turned to wave good-by to the Polar Bear as he sailed away to the North Pole.

Nearby sat an old fisherman on a bench mending his net.

"Hello, little girl," he said, as Mary Louise hesitated. "Moor your little hulk 'longside o' me an' I'll spin you a yarn!"

Then he began to tell how, many hundred years ago, all the land around about was covered with a thick forest instead of the deep blue water of the bay.

Then came the great giant Cormoran, who was 18 feet high and 3 yards wide, and his wife Cormelian, who was just as big, and they brought from the hills great gray rocks which they piled up, one on the other, hundreds of feet high, until they had made a mountain. And on the top of this they built their castle, where they lived until the giant's wife died and was buried under the Chapel rock.

Then Jack the Giant Killer climbed up the mountain, and after a hard fight Cormoran was killed, and there were no more giants in the land.

Next came the Small People, who cut down most of the forest, and built cottages for themselves, ploughed the fields and made gardens.

But one day a great enchanter came that way, and his strange dress and long gray beard frightened the women and children, and they shut their doors in his face whenever he asked for a drink, for he had walked far and was tired and thirsty.

At last he found the principal man of the Small People, a little old crusty fellow and very miserly. And when the great enchanter asked him for a drink of water, the Small Man told him he didn't keep a hotel for beggars. And this made the great enchanter so angry that he struck the ground with his staff, so that it made a deep hole, and then he went upon his journey.

Soon a little spring of water bubbled up through the hole, and by and by a stream burst forth that swelled to a river, and after a time the whole land was drowned, and only the high mountain remained above the water.

But the Small People who were buried under the water didn't die. They lived on just the same, waiting for the enchanter to return and lift the spell, and the land to rise, again with all the people on it.