about it. Did fairies really live in india-rubber balls? If not, what
made them bounce?
He thought and he thought and he thought—and at last he took out the
new brown-handled knife Uncle James had given him, and he cut a hole in
his india-rubber ball.
“Now I shall know!” he said. And he looked inside—but he was no wiser
than before. But that night when he was in bed he saw a little lady,
with gray gauze wings, sitting on his pillow.
[Illustration]
“Thank you so much,” she said, “for letting me out. A wicked enchanter
shut me and my million brothers up in balls, and when we struggle to
get out, the balls bounce.”
Then she vanished. Next morning Harry thought he had only dreamed about
her, so he ran to his ball; but there was the hole he had made, and
sure enough the ball never bounced again.
“Because there is no fairy in it,” Uncle James says.
_E. Nesbit._
THE PROUD GILT BUTTON.
THE gilt button shone and sparkled on Tommy’s coat and was absurdly
proud of himself. Tommy had sewn him there with a piece of string
and a packing-needle, one morning when his Mother was too busy with
the baby to attend to him. He went to school with the little boy and
listened with glistening contempt and dignity to all the master had to
say. He had a very small opinion of the master, for _he_ hadn’t a gilt
button upon his coat, and he couldn’t understand why Tommy’s heart went
pit-a-pit at such a rate when the schoolmaster asked him a question.
The rest of the boys rather made fun of Tommy’s button; but then, of
course, that was jealousy on their part. They would have liked one well
enough themselves; at least, so the button thought.
At night, when his chubby little master was fast asleep, with the old
coat folded up tidily on a chair beside the bed, the foolish button
began to boast and brag about his grandeur, and this didn’t quite
please the other buttons. They had lived on Tommy’s coat much longer
than he, and they didn’t see why he should give himself such airs.
They were quite ready to be friendly and kind, but they did _not_ want
to be looked down upon, and so in a very little time they were all
quarrelling.
[Illustration]
Presently Tommy’s Mother stooped over the child’s bed and kissed him.
She was very fond of her boy, and with good reason too, for he was
always bright and cheery, always helpful and loving, and only the poor
overworked woman knew what the little lad was to her. As she turned
from the bed the glitter of the gilt button on the worn old coat caught
her eye and she smiled at the sight of Tommy’s tailoring.
“Poor little lad,” she sighed; “it’s a shame to let him go so shabby,”
and she carried the coat downstairs and began to mend it neatly.
Now, the very first thing she did was to cut the gilt button off the
coat and put a sober black one in his place, and it happened that she
let the gilt button fall, and he rolled away under the hearth and lay
all night long amongst the dust and ashes.
In the morning little Tommy felt quite grand in his tidy coat, though
certainly he had a pang when he found his gilt button had gone. He
went downstairs, and, finding his Mother had overslept herself, set to
work to clean the hearth and light the fire, and very pleased he was
when he saw his old friend again amongst the ashes. He slipped him
into his trousers pocket, and there the button lived for many a long
day. Tommy grew to really love him, and wouldn’t have parted with him
for anything. When rich boys jingled the pennies in their pockets,
Tommy shook up the gilt button against a piece of slate-pencil, and it
sounded _almost_ as well.
And what did the gilt button think about it? He _liked_ it; yes, he
really did—at least, as soon as he got used to the dark depths of the
trousers pocket. He found out, don’t you see, that Tommy loved him, and
everyone knows, the wide world over, that it is better, yes, a thousand
times better, to be loved than to be admired.
_L. L. Weedon._
[Illustration]
THE GRATEFUL FAIRY.
THERE was once a Fairy who lived in a big library. It was rather a dull
place to live in, but the Fairy liked quiet. One day the room suddenly
grew noisy, and the Fairy peeped out from behind the poetry-book where
she lived, and saw two children playing. They were building a house
with the big books, a solid calf-skin house, with a vellum roof.
[Illustration]
“This would be a nice house for me,” said the Fairy, “rather large
perhaps, but I like plenty of room. That poetry-book was too thin!”
So she crept under the roof, which was made of a volume of Rollin’s
Ancient History. Her new house was rather musty, but it was large and
comfortable. She was just settling down when a prim little girl leading
a fat dog came into the room and scolded her little brother and sister,
shut up the Ancient History, put it up back on the shelf, and the
Fairy was shut in it. She had to make herself very small, I can tell
you, so as to be comfortable between the pages. But she did it, and
then went to sleep. “I shall wake when they open the book again,” she
said, and so she did. But the book was not opened again for years and
years and years. And at last it was opened by a learned Professor, and
he read in it through his spectacles, but he didn’t see the Fairy.
“Why,” she said, “you’re the little boy who once built a house with the
books.”
“Am I?” said the Professor, with a sigh.
“Why don’t you remember?” said the Fairy, and she flew on to his
shoulder and began whispering in his ear. But he thought it was his
own thoughts. And he remembered old times, and how he had played and
enjoyed himself when he was a child; but now he had grown learned, and
had been to Oxford, and had been made a Professor, he had forgotten how
to play. “Heigho!” he said, “learning isn’t everything. I wish I were
young again.”
“I can do that for you,” said the Fairy. “How old are you?”
“I’m not thirty yet,” he said.
“Then I’ll make him young,” she said to herself, “in return for his
letting me out of that dreadful book. Look out of the window,” she said
to him. And again it seemed to him that it was his own thoughts he
heard. And through the window he saw the little girl he used to play
with, only now she was grown a fair lady, and suddenly he grew young
again, and went out to her. And she met him with a smile, and they went
out into the fields and picked buttercups and daisies, and came back
and had strawberries and cream for tea.
“It’s good to be young again, my love,” said the Professor.
And the Fairy kept him young to the end of his days.
_E. Nesbit._
[Illustration]
THE BUNCH OF VIOLETS.
ONCE upon a time there was a little girl named Nettie, who lived with
an Aunt and cousin. She was very unhappy, for her naughty cousin used
to tell falsehoods about her, which the Aunt believed. Poor Nettie was
constantly being punished for faults which she had not committed, but
she was so patient and obedient that her Aunt’s heart was touched at
last. “Nettie does everything that I tell her,” said the woman to her
daughter; “I do not think that she can be such a very bad girl, after
all.”
“I know of something she could not do,” said Nettie’s spiteful cousin;
“only let me try her!”
“Well, just this once you may,” replied the girl’s Mother; “but if she
does _not_ fail, I shall not allow you to tease or worry her again.”
Then they called Nettie, and told her that she must go into the wood
and gather a bunch of violets. In spring-time, this would have been an
easy task, but it was now mid-winter. Poor Nettie, in a miserably thin
frock, wandered forth, shivering and crying. She knew that she should
find no violets in such weather, yet she dared not return without them.
What was she to do?
[Illustration]
Presently she saw in the distance a bright gleam as of flame. “What can
that be?” said Nettie to herself; “I will go and see.” So she went in
the direction of the light, and came soon to a fire, around which were
twelve men, each seated upon a big stone. The oldest of these men—a
very old fellow indeed, whose white beard swept the ground—spoke kindly
to the little girl, asking her who she was and what she wanted. Nettie
told her sad story. All the men felt very sorry for her, and the oldest
one said: “My name is January. You cannot find violets in my month. Yet
I think I can find a way to help you.” Then he turned to one of his
brothers, and said to him: “Suppose you change places with me, Brother
March?”
Brother March jumped up at once, and changed places with his eldest
brother. As soon as he had done this, a wonderful change took place
in everything. The snow vanished, the sun shone, the air grew softer,
the trees began to bud. Nettie forgot her troubles as she saw a bird
alight on the grass at her feet, and close to the spot was a bed of the
loveliest violets she had ever seen.
She thanked the kind brothers and returned to her Aunt’s house. The
violets must surely have been magic flowers, as from that day Nettie
was well and kindly treated by her Aunt, and even her cousin ceased to
torment her.
_E. Dyke._
THE PINK EGG.
THERE were two robins in the orchard hedge last Spring. They had a dear
little nest, and two bluey eggs, and they were as happy as anyone need
wish to be.
But one day a Boy came by, and he went off with the two eggs in a
pill-box. Then the little robins sat and cried all night.
But when they looked into the nest in the morning they saw where the
two bluey eggs had been a small pink egg—the colour of apple-blossoms.
“I shall hatch this egg,” said Mrs. Robin firmly. “Poor little deserted
thing!”
“Take care it doesn’t turn out a cuckoo,” said her husband.
But when the orchard was all pink and white with blossom, the egg was
hatched, and out of it came no cuckoo but a real live Fairy in a pink
gown.
[Illustration]
She kissed the Robins again and again. “You dears!” she said. “A wicked
enchanter shut me up in that pink egg—and you know the only way to
get anything alive out of an egg is to hatch it! So you’ve saved me.
And—well, you’ll see.” And she shook out her gauzy wings and fluttered
off.
Suddenly the Robins heard a faint “Tweet, tweet.” Mrs. Robin flew
to the nest, and there were two baby robins, and the Pink Fairy was
sitting on the edge of the nest. And hundreds of pink apple-blossom
fairies were crowding round.
“They are your very own babies,” said the Pink Fairy. “While you were
hatching me, my brothers and sisters stole your eggs from the Boy, and
they’ve been hatched in Fairyland.”
And that’s why two of the robins in our orchard sing more sweetly than
any other robins in the world.
They were hatched in Fairyland, you know, and of course that makes all
the difference.
_E. Nesbit._
OUR BLACK CAT.
ONCE upon a time there were three little kittens who set out to seek
their fortunes. The first kitten found a big barn. “Ah,” he said, “this
is a good enough fortune for me.” And he stayed there, and the rats and
the mice who lived in the barn were very much annoyed. And the second
kitten walked in at the dairy door, and the dairymaid said: “You pretty
tabby thing, you shall stay with me.”
“That’s good enough fortune,” said the kitten, and he lives on cream to
this day, and he is so fat that he is quite round.
But our black cat (who was the third kitten) was more adventurous. He
was running after a young sparrow, and not looking where he was going,
so he fell plump into a well, and there would certainly have been an
end of him, but that a good-sized Fairy, who lived in that well, and
happened to want a cat, pulled him out of the water, and helped him to
scramble up on to a ledge in the well-side.
[Illustration]
“Now,” said he, “will you be my horse and let me ride on you on fine
nights?”
“Yes,” mewed the kitten, shivering; “if I must, I must.”
Then the Fairy opened her front door, which was in the side of the
well, and took the wet kitten into her palace, where there was a
blazing fairy fire. Fairy servants came and dried the kitten, and gave
him warm milk to drink.
“Ah,” said the kitten, “you are something like a Fairy. I will be your
horse with pleasure.”
“That’s better,” said the Fairy. “The willing horse does the most work,
but he gets the most pay too. You shall never be cold, or hungry, or
frightened again.”
And she sent the kitten home at once by fairy telegraph.
That’s why our black cat sleeps all day. He has to go out all night for
the Fairy to ride him. He seems just like an ordinary cat: to look at
him, you’d never think he was the Fairy’s horse. But he is.
_E. Nesbit._
THE MIRROR OF TRUTH
ONCE upon a time there was a good and beautiful Princess, who had heard
that “Truth” was at the bottom of a well; so she went to look for it.
Of course, she did not know which well, and before she found the right
one she had got quite tired of being let down in buckets by long ropes.
But at last she came to a well in the darkest part of a pine wood, and
her heart told her that here her search would end. So she looked down,
and saw the bright circle of shining water far, far below.
“But how am I to get down?” she said.
And just then the son of the wood-reeve came by.
“Shall I go down for you, pretty lady?” he asked.
“I must go myself,” she answered. “My fairy goodmother said so.”
So she got into the bucket and he lowered her very carefully. And when
she got down she found that the shining circle she had seen was not
water but a mirror, and on its frame was written one word—“Truth.”
She came up with the mirror held fast in her arms, and she thanked the
wood-reeve’s son and went home.
Now, when in due time came suitors for her hand, the Princess said to
each: “How do you like my mirror?” And one after the other they looked
in the mirror, and then fled with shrieks of fear.
The King and Queen looked in the mirror and beheld only their good and
noble faces.
“What frightens the Princes, your suitors?” they asked.
Then the Princess told them that this was the Mirror of Truth, and that
those who looked in it saw their own true natures.
“The Princes, my suitors, had wicked hearts,” she said, “and when they
saw their true selves they were afraid.”
And no good Prince came there to woo, so the years went on and the
Princess was still unwed.
[Illustration]
One day, walking in the forest, the Princess met once again the
wood-reeve’s son, but he was grown a man, and as soon as the Princess
saw him she loved him. She ran and brought her mirror. “Are you afraid
to look in it?” she said. “It is the Mirror of Truth.”
“Why should I be afraid?” he asked. And he looked in the mirror, and
the Princess, leaning over his shoulder, looked too.
He started back with a cry. “I am not like that,” he said. For the
mirror had shown him a face like his own but a thousand times more
beautiful, for it revealed now the full glory of his noble nature. And
as the Princess looked in the mirror she read his inmost heart.
“Why, you love me,” she said softly.
“I have loved you ever since I first saw you,” he said.
And when the King and Queen saw his face reflected in the mirror they
said: “Take our daughter, for you alone are worthy of her.”
So they were married, and the wood-reeve’s son is King of all the land.
_E. Nesbit._
THE LITTLE BOY NEXT DOOR.
_THERE_ were once some people who went away to the seaside, and shut
up their house and sent away all the servants, and then left the poor
flowers in their green-house to die of thirst. The fairies were very
sorry for the poor pretty things.
“Can’t we help them?” they said, and they flew round the green-house,
looking at the flowers through the glass, till at last they found a
broken pane in the door. Then the fairies each got a dew-drop and flew
in with it, but the poor flowers were so thirsty that the dew-drops
were of no use to them.
“Oh, dear!” the fairies said, “however can we help them?”
They talked and talked, but could think of no way. But the most
beautiful of the fairies, who was also the wisest, flew away.
“How unfeeling she is!” said the others.
Next day the flowers in the green-house drooped more and more, and they
were just murmuring “Water” almost with their last breath, when the
little boy from next door climbed over the wall. He looked through the
glass at the flowers, and then went in and watered them. And this he
did every day.
“I wonder what made him think of it,” said all the fairies.
“Why, I did, of course,” said the wisest and most beautiful. “While you
were all chattering I went and sat on his pillow, and whispered to him
all about the poor flowers next door. He thought it was a dream, but we
and the flowers know better.”
So when the people of the house came back from the seaside they found
all their flowers alive and well, and this was certainly very much more
than they had any right to expect. And the master of the house was so
pleased with the kind care the little boy next door had taken of the
flowers that he gave them all to him, and got some new ones for himself.
_E. Nesbit._
_Printed in Bavaria._
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 59, “I” changed to “It” (It was a thin)
Page 82, “bnt” changed to “but” (but I couldn’t bear)