A SURPRISE
Margaret hunted and hunted everywhere for Embroiderer.
“Where can he be?” she said. “I would like to finish these French knots
to-day.”
[Illustration]
“Where did you last see him, My Lady?” asked Sir Bodkin in distress. He,
too, had been looking everywhere; in the needle-book and the work-basket
and on the table-top, for the lost One-Eyed Fairy. This was the first
time during the year they had lived with Margaret that anything had
happened to any one of them.
[Illustration]
“Oh, I remember now where I left him yesterday!” cried Margaret. “I was
in a hurry and stuck him ’way down deep into the pincushion.”
“Then you’ll have to squeeze him out,” said Sir Bodkin. “Take the
pincushion and squeeze the top and bottom together carefully, so if he’s
there his toe won’t prick your fingers. Many a One-Eyed Fairy has been
lost in a pincushion.”
Margaret took up the red tomato pincushion and squeezed it and pinched
it.
“Here he is!” she cried as Embroiderer’s head began to poke through the
top of the red cloth.
“Deary me, but I’m glad to get out of that place again!” said he taking
a deep breath. “You can’t breathe in there and the sawdust gets in your
eye, too. I squirmed and wriggled and perhaps I’d have come out the
bottom soon. My, but I’m glad you squeezed me out the top!”
“Of course you might have got yourself out, but we should have been
frightfully worried,” said Sir Bodkin much relieved to see him again
safe and sound.
“Do you feel like helping me to do the rest of these French knots in the
tea-cloth?” asked Margaret, putting him through the emery to dust off
the sawdust.
“Oh, yes! Some exercise would do me good,” he answered.
Margaret and he worked busily and finished the tea-cloth.
“Do you know that to-morrow will be my birthday?” asked the little girl
of the One-Eyed Fairies and their King.
“So it will,” replied Sir Bodkin. “It doesn’t seem a year since we came
to live with you, My Lady.”
“No, the time has gone very fast for me. It’s been lots of fun knowing
you all and learning how to sew and make pretty things,” said Margaret
looking at her tiny friends with shining eyes.
“We’ll always stick to you, My Lady,” they all cried.
“I’m glad, for I never could do without you. Oh, there goes that clock
striking half-past five! It’s late. I must hurry to tidy myself before
Father comes home to dinner. Good-bye, dears,” she said running out of
the room.
Next morning early Sir Bodkin and the One-Eyes were wakened out of their
sleep by a loud noise in their work-basket home.
“Tick-tick,” it sounded.
“Mercy sakes!” cried Sir Bodkin hopping up very much frightened. “I
never heard such a queer noise in my life!”
[Illustration]
Every one of the One-Eyed Fairies was frightened, too. There in the
work-basket among the sewing things was a long blue box. The noise was
coming from inside.
“Maybe it’s a bomb!” cried Baster who had a vivid imagination.
“It’s something terrible, I know!” said Hemmer timidly.
“I think we’re all wrong!” said Sir Bodkin suddenly. “This is Margaret’s
birthday and I believe this is for her, ’cause it looks something like a
jewel-box to me and——”
[Illustration: “A silver wrist-watch for my birthday!”]
“What’s the matter? What are you all looking at so intently!” cried
Margaret herself just then as she jumped out of bed and ran over to see.
“Oh, look!” she cried in delight, picking up the blue leather box and
pressing the spring-button in the front. The lid flew up and the cause
of all the disturbance lay there, before their eyes, ticking away on the
white satin lining.
“A silver wrist-watch for my birthday!” gasped Margaret with her eyes
growing bigger and bigger with surprise and pleasure.
Sir Bodkin and all the One-Eyed Fairies fell back in astonishment.
“Many, many happy returns of the day, My Lady!” said the King, bowing
and bending.
“That’s just what it says on this card,” cried Margaret and read aloud:
“Many happy returns of your birthday, our dear,
We wish, with this little surprise.
For your stitches have made us quite glad all the year,
With the help of your friends, the One-Eyes.
“MOTHER, FATHER, AND BROTHER JIM.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as
printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's The One-Eyed Fairies, by Georgia Eldridge Hanley