The little girl is drowning in the gurgling creek. She's followed the water sprite's tune, hopped along the slippery stones and then she fell in. Her friends are upstream, crying for their mothers, too small to pull her out. She doesn't understand what dying is. The water sprite plays the fiddle and the music is like spun gold to her little ears as she goes under. When they are old, her friends will speak of her and all secretly think how jealous they are that she got to hear the song to the end.