A PROMISE OF BETTER TIMES
When Phil was alone again, he waited impatiently for the long twilight
to end in darkness, and the stars to come out. It seemed a very long
time. Once in a while a faint murmur came from his harp, but it was a
mere breathing of sound, and he turned restlessly in his chair. Then he
closed his eyes and waited again, and his waiting was rewarded by a
small voice in his ear whispering,
"Here we are! here we are!"
"Oh," said Phil, "I thought you never would come again."
"Tut, tut, child, you must not be so doubtful," said the little voice
again, and the starry coronet gleamed in his eyes. "I have brought you
some sweet odors of wild-flowers, and spicy breath of pine and hemlock,
for I thought you needed a tonic."
Phil smelled something exquisite as she spoke, but all he said was,
"What is a tonic?"
"Something the doctors give when children are pale and thin, and do not
have enough fresh air. I don't pretend to know what it means, but I
often go to see sick children in hospitals, and so I hear about such
things."
"Hark! is that my wind harp?--why, it sounds like water dropping and
gurgling over stones."
"It is the song of a mountain brook that my friends are singing as they
dance over your harp. Look!"
Phil looked, and saw the flock of fairies like white butterflies
swarming again over his harp, and heard the soft, sweet singing which
kept time to their steps.
"Oh, how beautiful! how beautiful!" said Phil.
"When you hear a brook singing, you must remember us," said the fairy.
"Indeed I will; but I am afraid I shall never hear one: only the hoarse
cries of the street and the rumbling of wagons come to me here."
"Ah, better times are coming; then you will not need us."
Phil lay still in his chair, listening intently; the white figures
glanced in shadowy indistinctness across the window, only the starry ray
from each little brow lighting their dance. They swept up and down, and
swayed like flowers in a breeze, and still the little clear notes of
their song fell like dripping water in cool cascades. Now it flowed
smoothly and softly, again it seemed to dash and foam among pebbly
nooks.
"Does it rest you? are you better?" asked the one little fairy who did
all the talking.
"Oh, so much!" said Phil.
After a while the song stopped, and the fairies drew all together in a
cluster, and were quite still.
"What does that mean?" asked Phil.
"They are disturbed; there is a storm coming. We shall have to return."
"I am so sorry! I wanted to know more about you, and to see what you
wear."
"Mortals must not approach us too nearly. We may draw near to you. See,
I will stand before you."
"You seem to be all moonshine," said Phil.
"Yes," said the fairy, laughing merrily; "these robes of ours are of
mountain mist, spangled with star-dust so fine that it makes us only
glisten. We have to wear the lightest sort of fabric, so that we are not
hindered in our long flights."
"Do you know flower fairies?"
"Yes; but we are of a very different race. I suppose you thought we
dressed in rose-leaves and rode on humble-bees, but we do not; we are
more--now for a long word--more ethereal." And again the fairy laughed.
"Ether means air," said Phil, quite proudly. "Do you know any fairy
stories?" he asked.
"Yes; shall I tell you one next time I come?"
"Oh do, please. So you _will_ come again."
"Yes, if I can. Now I must go. I thought I heard distant thunder. We
must fly so fast--so fast! Good-bye--good-bye."
There was a long rumbling of thunder far off in the distance, and a
cooler air in the hot, close room. Phil lay and dreamed, wondering how
long it took the wind fairies to reach their home. Then the sweet, spicy
odors came to him again, and he lifted the languid flowers Miss Schuyler
had brought him, and put them in his glass of water.
He dreamed of fair green fields and meadows, of silent lakes bordered
with rushes, out of which sprang wild-fowl slowly flapping their broad
wings; of forests thick and dark, where on fallen trees the green moss
had grown in velvet softness; of mountains lifting their purple tops
into the fleecy clouds, and of long, shady country roads winding in and
out and about the hills; of lanes bordered with blackberry-bushes and
sumac, clematis and wild-rose; of dewy nooks full of ferns; of the songs
of birds and the chirp of insects; and it seemed to him that he must put
some of all this beauty into some shape of his own creation--picture or
poem, song or speech; and then came a sudden sharp twinge of pain, and
the brightness faded, and the room was dark, and he was hungry, and only
poor little Phil, sick and sad and weary and poor.