The worst bind of a fairy.
|DREAMS are such queer things, so very real when all the time they are
unreal, that sometimes I think they must be the work of fairies,--happy
dreams the work of good fairies and bad dreams the work of bad fairies.
I guess you've had both kinds. I know I have many times. However, Bobby
Coon says that fairies have nothing to do with dreams. Bobby ought to
know, for he spends most of the winter asleep, and it is only when you
are asleep that you have real dreams.
Bobby had kept awake as long as there was anything to eat, but when Jack
Frost froze everything hard, and rough Brother North Wind brought the
storm-clouds that covered the Green Forest with snow, Bobby climbed into
his warm bed inside the big hollow chestnut tree which he called his,
curled up comfortably, and went to sleep. He didn't care a hair of
his ringed tail how cold it was or how Brother North Wind howled and
shrieked and blustered. He was so fat that it made him wheeze and puff
whenever he tried to hurry during the last few days he was abroad, and
this fat helped to keep him warm while he slept, and also kept him from
waking from hunger.
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Bobby didn't sleep right straight through the winter as does Johnny
Chuck. Once in a great while he would wake up, especially if the weather
had turned rather warm. He would yawn a few times and then crawl up
to his doorway and peep out to see how things were looking outside.
Sometimes he would climb down from his home and take a little walk for
exercise. But he never went far, and soon returned for another long nap.
As it began to get towards the end of winter his naps were shorter. He
was no longer fat. In fact, his stomach complained a great deal of being
empty. Perhaps you know what it is like to have a stomach complain that
way. It is very disturbing. It gave Bobby no peace while he was awake,
and when he was asleep it gave him bad dreams. Bobby knew very well
that no fairies had anything to do with those dreams; they came from a
bothersome, empty, complaining stomach and nothing else.
One day Bobby had the worst dream of all. He had prowled around a
little the night before but had found nothing wherewith to satisfy his
bothersome stomach. So he had gone back to bed very much out of sorts
and almost as soon as he was asleep he had begun to dream. At first
the dreams were not so very bad, though bad enough. They were mostly of
delicious things to eat which always disappeared just as he was about
to taste them. They made him grunt funny little grunts and snarl funny
little impatient snarls in his sleep, you know.
But at last he began to have a really, truly, bad dream. It was one
of the worst dreams Bobby ever had had. He dreamed that he was walking
through the Green Forest, minding his own affairs, when he met a great
giant. Being afraid of the great giant, he ran with all his might and
hid in a hollow log. No sooner was he inside that hollow log than up
came the great giant and began to beat on that hollow log with a great
club. Every blow made a terrible noise inside that hollow log. It was
like being inside a drum with some one beating it. It filled Bobby's
ears with a dreadful roaring. It made his head ache as if it would
split. It sent cold shivers all over him. It filled him with dreadful
fear and despair. Yes, indeed, it was a bad dream, a very, very bad
dream!