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(“Mamma doesn’t,” said the Chicken; “she measures with a yard-stick.”)

Well, Simon prided himself on being so big, and it was not pleasant to him to find himself suddenly become so small that a large rooster could have looked down upon him. But he did not say any thing, for fear of old Garuly’s stick, but just got into the boat as soon as possible. The old man got in, too, and they were soon floating down the stream. The brook seemed like a river, and the grass upon the banks was like trees, to Simon, now. The old Garuly guided the boat over the rapids, that seemed frightful to Simon, and floated it down to where the cliffs were steep, and presently came to a place where the water runs under a large rock. The old man steered the queer craft into this dark, cave-like place, and shot up to a shelving landing-place.

“Get out!” he squeaked.

Simon did as he was commanded.

“Go in! go in!” cried the Garuly, pointing to a hole in the cliff.

“I am too large,” said Simon.

And immediately the old man struck him over the head three times, as before, crying,

“Smaller! smaller! smaller!”

Simon now found himself not more than half as large as he was before. He went in with the Garuly, who had also grown smaller. Inside there was the daintiest chamber, all full of beautiful shells wrought into tiny articles of furniture. The floor was paved with shining pebbles, and the room was lit up by three fire-flies and two glow-worms.

“How could you make the place so beautiful?” cried Simon.

“The Garulies work together,” said the old man, sharply.

The little man told Simon to go in through another door, but Simon was still too large for that, and so the Garuly again pounded him, crying,

“Smaller! smaller! smaller!”

Once in, Simon saw indeed the treasures of the Garuly’s household. There were easy-chairs, made of the hulls of hickory-nuts; hammocks, made of the inside bark of the paw-paw; wash-bowls, curiously carved from the hulls of beech-nuts; and beautiful curtains, of the leaves of the silver poplar. The floor was paved with the seeds of the wild grape, and beautifully carpeted with the lichens from the beech and maple trees. The beds were made of a great variety of mosses, woven together with the utmost delicacy of workmanship. There was a bath-tub made of a mussel-shell, cut into beautiful cameo figures.

“How wonderful!” cried Simon, clapping his hands.

“The Garulies work together!” said the old man, more decidedly than before.

Simon noticed that his own voice was beginning to squeak like that of the old Garuly himself. But after seeing the interior of his dwelling, he would not have minded being changed into a Garuly.

The old man was now leading him out through a different entrance. Then along a path they went until they came to a fence, the rails of which seemed to Simon to be larger than logs. They crawled through the fence, and found themselves in a farm-yard. The chickens seemed to be larger than those great creatures that geologists say once lived on the earth, and that were as high as a house. Presently they came to a bee-stand. The bees seemed to Simon to be of immense size, and he was greatly afraid; but the old Garuly spoke to the fierce-looking sentinel bee that stood by the door and shook one of his antennae in a friendly way.

(“His Aunt Annie?” said Chicken Little. “What do you mean?”

“His antennae are his feelers, the little hair-like things that stand out from his head.”)

Now the bees seemed to know the Garuly, and so they let him pass in. But poor Simon had to be pounded down again before he was small enough to go in. When he got in, he saw a world of beauty. Being so small himself, and so near to the bees, he could see how beautiful their eyes were, made up of hundreds of little eyes, with little hairs growing out between them. And then, too, the honey-comb seemed like great, golden wells, full of honey. Each well seemed as large as a barrel. They climbed up along the sides of the combs, and saw some bees feeding the young, some building cells, some bringing in honey, some feeding the queen bee, some clearing out the waste matter, and others standing guard. They all seemed cheerful.