One day the man who lived upon the hill where the spring bubbles up from the ground and makes the beginning of the singing stream said to his wife:  “Mother, I will follow the stream and see where it leads to!” So he started down the stream and walked and walked and walked until the stream took him down through the whispering forest clear down to the sea.

Then he turned around and walked back up the stream from the ocean—­up through the whispering forest until he came again to his home at the top of the hill.

“I followed the stream down through a great whispering forest, mother,” he said, “until I came to the sea.  Then I turned around and came back the same way.  It was a beautiful trip and when I came to the center of the great whispering forest there was a clearing at the side of the tinkling, singing stream, and the lovely fish leaped from the crystal waters and showed me their wonderful coloring, and the clearing was filled with beautiful flowers and the music of birds.  And it was so beautiful I stopped and watched and listened.

“It seemed as if hundreds of children were playing around me, and although I could not hear them yet it seemed to me that I felt they were shouting and laughing at their play!”

“How wonderful it must have been!” said his wife.

“It was indeed very wonderful, mother.  And when I returned I again stopped at the same place and sat and listened to the singing of the waters and the birds, and I saw the wild creatures come down into the clearing and act as if they were being fed, and all the time I seemed to feel the laughter and happy shouting of children at play.  And a most delightful feeling of contentment and happiness came over me as if I sat within the borders of Fairyland!

“Then as I stooped to drink of the tinkling waters before I started on my way home, I saw, tied to a flower growing in the water, the tiny little bottle with the note inside which I had floated off a long time ago, so I brought it home with me!”

And from his knapsack the man took the tiny bottle and placed it on the table before his wife.

“I wish we knew just who tied the bottle to the flower!” said the wife as she picked the bottle up to look at it.  And because the bottle had been used by Sally Migrundy, the two good people suddenly knew all about Sally Migrundy, the magic little cottage, and the happy children who lived there.

Every year the man takes his wife, and together they walk down the tinkling stream until they came to the exact center of the great whispering forest; there they sit for hours at a time, feeling the happiness that overflows from the hearts of Sally Migrundy and the children.  And while the good couple have not been able to see the children or Sally Migrundy, or even the tiny magic cottage, they know they are all there, for at times they can hear the laughter and once in a while they feel the touch of a tiny hand.  And when they return to their home upon the hill they find they have received enough happiness at the clearing beside the tinkling, singing water to last them for a whole year.