THE OWLS AND THE GAMBLESOME ELF.
THE next morning when Teddy awoke it was still very early; so early that even Hannah was not yet stirring.
Outside everything was wrapped in a silvery mist, and now and then a drop of moisture plumped down on the porch roof.
Teddy lay still for a while, growing wider and wider awake, and then he began to stir restlessly and wish that his mother would come.After a while he called her, but the house was so silent that he didn't like to call very loudly, and there was no answer.
He thought he would call again, and then suddenly he remembered the Counterpane Fairy, and wondered if she would like little boys who called their mothers so early.
He turned over in bed, and raising his knees into a hill stared at the yellow silk square and thought of the wonderful golden castle where she had taken him the day before.He wished he knew what all the bird people would have done when they reached the top of the stairs.He thought they would have put a golden crown on his head and made him king.
And the princess was so beautiful he longed to see her again.How surprised Hannah would have been if she had heard voices, and had come up-stairs to see who it was, and had found the beautiful princess sitting with him, and had seen the golden crown on his head! If she only knew about it she would never call him a mischievous boy again.He had done a great deal more than Hannah could.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" said a little voice just back of his knees; "almost at the top, anyway." Teddy knew the voice; it was that of the Counterpane Fairy, and there was the top of her brown hood showing over his knees.He watched, breathless with eagerness, until he saw her face appear above them, and then he cried out: "I wondered whether you would come; I'm so glad.Are you going to show me another story, and will you stay a long while?"The Counterpane Fairy said nothing until she had sat down on top of his knees for a while and caught her breath, and then she said: "Well, well!
It's steeper than it was yesterday.I thought I should never get across that satin square, it was so slippery.""Shall I put my knees down?" asked Teddy, moving them.
"For mercy's sake! no," said the fairy, clutching at the quilt."You might upset me.Keep right still and I'll show you another story.""Oh, yes!" cried Teddy; "please do; and let me go to the golden castle again.""No, I can't do that," said the Counterpane Fairy, "for that was yesterday's story, and this will be another.""But what became of the princess?" asked Teddy.
"Oh! she married the hero, of course," said the fairy.
"But I thought I was the hero."
"There, there!" said the fairy, impatiently, "I told you that was yesterday's story, and if you want to see any more you must choose another square.""Well, I will," said Teddy."May I choose that green square?""Yes," said the fairy."Now fix your eyes on it while I count."Teddy began to stare at the green square so hard that he scarcely winked, but he heard the Counterpane Fairy counting on in her thin little voice until she reached FORTY-NINE.
The green square spread and grew just as the yellow one had done while she counted, until Teddy seemed drifting off into endless green spaces.
Then the Counterpane Fairy clapped her hands and he saw that he was hovering over a grassy hillside.
"Now you are an elf, you know," he heard the fairy say.
At the bottom of the green hill there was a brook, and at the top was a line of shady green woods.Overhead the sky was very blue, with shining heaps of cottony white clouds; a soft wind was blowing, but the sun was warm, and insects were buzzing past intent on business.A brown bird whirred by and dropped out of sight among the grasses.
Teddy floated through the air lighter than a feather, and he felt so happy that he clapped his hands together and turned head over heels in the air.As he came right side up again he saw a bit of thistle-down drifting on up the hill, and he was so little that when he flew after it and set himself astride of it, it seemed as big as a barrel to him.He floated on up the hill with it, and the wind was like a cushion behind him.
As they reached the edge of the hill the thistle-down caught on a bush, and Teddy almost has his leg wedged between it and a leaf.He jumped off in a hurry, and stood looking about him and wondering what he should do next.
Suddenly he saw something that made him open his eyes wide in astonishment.Four large black-and-yellow butterflies were tied to a knot on an old tree close by, but it was not at the butterflies themselves that he wondered, for he had often seen them flitting about the fields; it was at the way they were loaded down with the strangest things: all sorts of fairy household furniture--little chairs and tables, bedsteads, tiny pots and pans, a great soup-kettle almost as large as a huckleberry, two thistle-down mattresses, and a number of other things.All these were very neatly packed and tied between the butterflies' wings with spider-web ropes.
In the middle of the knot was a hole, but instead of being round, as a knot-hole generally is, it was square, and there was a little door fitted into it.
Suddenly this door opened, and on the threshold of it stood a beautiful little fairy.She stood there looking about, and then she drew from her pocket a handkerchief, thin and delicate as gossamer, and wiped her eyes.After that she began to sob, and Teddy knew that what he had thought was the buzzing of a bee inside the knot had really been the sound of her weeping.
"Hello!" called the elf.
The fairy stopped sobbing and looked about her.When she saw Teddy she stared at him for a moment and then she began to wipe her eyes and sob again.
Teddy climbed up the branch of a blackberry bush until he was quite close to the knot-hole, and sat down on the stem and stared at her.
"What makes you cry?" he asked.
Still the fairy said nothing, but she folded her little handkerchief, though it was quite wet, and put it carefully back into her pocket.
