completely
overgrown with little green rocking-chairs. They were growing about in
great confusion, and once or twice, when her frock happened to brush
against them, quite an avalanche of them went clattering down the bank
and broke up at the bottom into curious little bits of wood like
jackstraws. This made climbing down the bank very exciting, but she got
safely to the bottom at last, and was just starting off for another
journey of discovery when she came suddenly upon the toy farm-house
standing quite by itself in the open country. None of the family was
present except the Farmer, who was standing in front of the house,
staring at it in a bewildered way as if he had never laid eyes on it
before. He was a plain-featured man, with a curious little hat something
like the lid of a coffee-pot, and with a great number of large yellow
buttons arranged on the front of his coat like a row of cream-tarts;
and, after the manner of all toy-farmers, he was buried to the ankles in
a round piece of wood to keep him from falling over.

Now Dorothy had always particularly wanted to see the inside of a toy
farm-house, and, as this seemed to be an excellent opportunity, she
walked up to the Farmer and said, very politely, "Can I see your house?"

"I should think you could if you looked at it," said the Farmer, staring
first at her and then at the house, as if he were greatly surprised at
the question; "_I_ can see it easily enough."

"But I mean, can I go over it?" said Dorothy, rather confused by this
answer.

The Farmer rubbed his nose and looked thoughtfully at the roof of the
house for a moment and then said, rather sulkily, "Yes, I suppose you
can, but you must agree not to knock off the chimbleys."

"Dear me," said Dorothy, beginning to laugh, "that isn't what I mean at
all. I mean, can I go through it?"

The Farmer, after turning over this proposition in his mind with great
deliberation, got down on his hands and knees and took a long look
through the little door in the front of the house, and then getting up
on his feet again, said, very seriously, "I don't see anything to
prevent it; there's another door at the back,"--and walked gravely away.
He did this in a very peculiar way, by a sort of sidelong roll on his
round wooden block like a barrel being worked along on one end; and, as
Dorothy stood watching this performance with great interest, he
presently fell over one of the little rocking-chairs, and coming down
heav