In order to employ the activity of Piccolissima, her father had at
one time given her some pots of flowers; for a long time, nothing
came of them, for she turned over the earth incessantly, and kept
looking at the roots to see if they began to sprout. Now that she no
longer asked ten questions, one after the other, without waiting for
an answer, and that she left her plants to grow, and no longer took
them up to look at their roots, she had in her garden, just under
the window, one foot of potatoes, three feet of hemp, a bean, and a
strawberry plant, in pots. Her brother, in jumping out of the
window, had broken off some ripe strawberries, which the little girl
had cherished for her mother, and Piccolissima went sorrowfully to
examine the havoc, and pick up the fruit.

She no longer supported herself upon the flexible stalks of the
nasturtiums and the convolvulus, which Mr. Tom Thumb cultivated, and
who more than once had complained at finding them broken. She no
longer seated herself on the branches of the mignonette, and then
let the wind blow her at its will, backwards and forwards, a
dangerous and monotonous amusement, which soon wearied. Now, with
her elbow resting on the edge of the pot of strawberries, under the
shadow of the Persian lilac, she remained in contemplation.

She observed running about some little creatures that she had never
seen before, and which appeared to her so wild that she dared not
begin a conversation.

"O, what is that?" she said at last, stooping down and resting her
head on her hand, and forgetting her lost harvest of strawberries;
"here is something very curious. They are smaller than the flies. A
myosotis could accommodate a number of them in its delicate cup;