[Illustration: Tailpiece]
At an early age St Dolly showed the sweetness of her nature by her
tender love for her widowed father, a baker, dwelling at Pie Corner,
with a large family of little children. It chanced that with bad
harvests bread became so dear that, of course, bakers were ruined by
high prices. The miller fell upon Dolly’s father, and swept the shop
with his golden thumb. Not a bed was left for the baker or his little
ones. St Dolly slept upon a flour sack, having prayed that good angels
would help her to help her father. Now sleeping, she dreamt that the
oven was lighted, and she felt falling in a shower about her, raisins,
currants, almonds, lemon peel, flour, with heavy drops of brandy.
Then in her dreams she saw the fairies gather up the things that
fell, and knead them into a cake. They put the cake into the oven,
and dancing round and round, the fairies vanished, crying, “Draw the
cake, Dolly--Dolly, draw the cake.” And Dolly awoke and drew the cake,
and, behold, it was the first Twelfth Cake, sugared at the top, and
bearing the images of Faith, Hope and Charity. Now this cake, shown in
the window, came to the king’s ear; and the king bought the cake, and
married Dolly to his grand falconer, to whom she proved a faithful and
loving wife, bearing him a baker’s dozen of lovely children.
* * * * *
There was a general laugh at Pink’s story, it was so _very_ short, and
Pink felt quite proud of herself in having got through her tale telling
about twice as quickly as Quick.
“Only two more stories,” said Oberon, “and then all must fly back to
their proper work as fairies. There are so many of us here that would
like to take a turn on the tale-teller’s stool that it is now not
easy to choose, so we will have our next story from the first fairy
who can get on the stool--but wait,” for as soon as Oberon spoke the
rush began, “you must all go to your places and start fair when I say
‘three.’” There was a pause while all settled back in their places, and
then Oberon said slowly, “One--Two--Three.”
As soon as the last word was heard there was such a scramble and rush
from all parts of the ring, some running, some flying, but the nimblest
of all was a Kobold, who seated himself firmly on the stool and would
not let himself be pushed off. As soon as it was seen that the stool
was occupied all the fairies who had tried to get there went laughing
merrily back to their places, and the Kobold triumphantly began the
story of
[Illustration: Seated himself firmly on the stool]
[Illustration: He ran away with it]