[Illustration: 174]
FANCHON lay down in the dark in her little bed, which a carpenter in
the village had made long ago of walnut-wood and carved a light railing
alongside. The good old man had been resting years and years now under
the shadow of the church, in a grass-grown bed; for Fanchon’s cot had
been her grandfather’s when he was a little lad, and he had slept where
she sleeps now. A curtain of pink-sprigged cotton protects her slumbers;
she sleeps, and in her dreams she sees the Blue Bird flying to his
sweetheart’s Castle. She thinks he is as beautiful as a star, but she
never expects him to come and light on her shoulder. She knows _she_
is not a Princess, and no Prince changed into a blue bird will come to
visit her. She tells herself that all birds are not Princes; that the
birds of her village are villagers, and that there might be one perhaps
found amongst them, a little country lad changed into a sparrow by a
bad fairy and wearing in his heart under his brown feathers the love of
little Fanchon. Yes, if _he_ came and she knew him, she would give him
not bread crumbs only, but cake and kisses. She would so like to see
him, and lo! she sees him; he comes and perches on her shoulder. He is
a jack-sparrow, only a common sparrow. He has nothing rich or rare about
him, but he looks alert and lively. To tell the truth, he is a little
torn and tattered; he lacks a feather in his tail; he has lost it in
battle--unless it was through some bad fairy of the village. Fanchon has
her suspicions he is a naughty bird. But she is a girl, and she does not
mind her jack-sparrow being a trifle headstrong, if only he has a kind
heart. She pets him and calls him pretty names. Suddenly he begins to
grow bigger; his body gets longer; his wings turn into two arms; he is
a boy, and Fanchon knows who he is--Antoine, the gardener’s little lad,
who asks her:
“Shall we go and play together, shall we, Fanchon?”
She claps her hands for joy, and away she goes.... But suddenly she
wakes and rubs her eyes. Her sparrow is gone, and so is Antoine! She is
all alone in her little room. The dawn, peeping in between the flowered
curtains, throws a white, innocent light over her cot. She can hear
the birds singing in the garden. She jumps out of bed in her little
nightgown and opens the window; she looks out into the garden, which
is gay with flowers--roses, geraniums, and convolvulus--and spies her
little pensioners, her little musicians, of yesterday. There they all
sit in a row on the garden-fence, singing her a morning hymn to pay her
for their crumbs of bread.