Adventures by Leaf Light and Other Stories

One day Josie noticed a very small person climbing up a hollyhock stem. He was puffing and panting, his small cheeks very red and warm, his tiny fat legs barely stretching from one notch to another.
She first became aware of him because he was making such a noise, his breathing was heavy and bits and pieces of the hollyhock stem were breaking off as he climbed.
"He is not doing it very tidily," she thought, remembering mountaineers she had seen on television. But then he had no ropes, no clamps, no friend in large boots and comforting red socks.
His concentration was absolute for the first part of the climb, but when he was half way up he paused, out of breath, and he noticed her.
He stared at her with his small bright eyes with growing indignation.
"It is all very well for you," he said, "sitting in your chair with all the time in the world and no worries, but I am a very small person and this climb is not easy."
"I agree," she said. "Does it have to be done in such a hurry? Perhaps if you did it more calmly... and planned each move before you made it..."
"O yes!" He lifted his nose. "Full of advice I notice. You do not have to be anywhere by mid-day. You will not be in any trouble if you are late."
He sat on a flower stem and sulked.
She noticed he was damp with effort.
"Where do you have to be at mid-day?" she inquired.
"O, I have no time to go into all that!" he said with a lordly wave of his pudgy hand and a turning up of his minute nose.
But she noticed he still went on sitting, still out of breath.
She watched him for a short while with interest, and then looked at the rest of the stem he had to climb.
A hollyhock stem looked as tall to him as a factory chimney did to her. It towered above her and all the other flowers in the garden. She sometimes thought of the hollyhock as a rocket that had taken off from the earth, but had become transformed into a plant before it could reach the sky.
"I cannot sit here all day you know," the very small person announced, noticing that her attention had wandered from his small self.
"Of course not," she said with understanding. "You must be on your way."
"I must be on my way," he said importantly, as though she had not spoken.
"Of course," she said.
He was standing now, balanced rather uncertainly, she thought, on the flower step he had been resting on a moment before. He looked less hot and bothered and was ready to resume his efforts to climb the main stem.
He looked at her expectantly.
Nothing was said.
She did not know what more to say, although she would have liked to hold him back a moment longer.
She did not want to make him late for his appointment, though she was curious about him.
"I am a very important person you know," he said, lifting himself up to his full height. "Even if I am a bit small compared to you," he added in an undertone so low that she could scarcely hear what he was saying.