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One day a man who lived on a hill many, many miles away from the whispering forest said to his wife:  “Mother, wouldn’t you like to know where the water that flows from our spring goes to?” And his wife replied:  “It must travel until it reaches the ocean!”

“Yes, I know that, mother” he replied, “but I mean, wouldn’t it be interesting to know all of the country through which the water flows?”

So the more they talked of it, the more interested they became until the man finally wrote upon a slip of paper and put the paper into a tiny bottle.  Then he put the bottle upon the surface of the spring water and watched it float away.

The little bottle floated along, tumbling over the tiny falls and tinkling ripples and bobbing up and down in the deep, blue, quiet, places until finally it floated to Sally Migrundy’s and came to rest in the mass of pretty flowers where Sally Migrundy came each morning to dip her tiny bucket of water.

And so Sally Migrundy found the tiny bottle and took it into her tiny house to read the tiny note she saw inside.

It was such a nice, happy-hearted note Sally Migrundy said:  “I will answer it!” So she wrote a happy-hearted note and asked whoever read it to come and visit her.  Then she put her note in the tiny bottle and sent it dancing and bobbing down through the whispering forest, riding upon the surface of the singing stream.  And Sally Migrundy’s note floated along in the bottle until a little boy and a little girl saw it and picked it up.

And when they read Sally Migrundy’s happy-hearted note asking them to visit her they started following up the stream until after a long, long time they came to the tiny little cottage.

Sally Migrundy was very much surprised to see the two children, for she had almost forgotten she had written the invitation.

“Howdeedoo!” said Sally Migrundy, “Where in the world did you children come from?”

“We found a note in a bottle and traveled up the stream until we came to your little cottage,” they answered.

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“But won’t your mamas and daddies be worried because you have been away from home so long?” Sally Migrundy asked.

“We are orphans,” the children said.

Then Sally Migrundy kissed them and asked them into her tiny cottage.

The door was so small the children had to get down upon their hands and knees to crawl through.  But when they got inside they were surprised to find that the rooms were very large.  In fact, Sally Migrundy’s living room was larger inside than the whole little cottage was on the outside, for, as you have probably guessed, Sally Migrundy’s cottage was a magic house.

And in one corner of the living room there was a queer stand with a silver stem sticking up through the center, and the stem curved over and down towards five or six little crystal glasses.