THE FAIRY’S FRIENDS.
“I thought I was a bird,” said Tina, “and birds don’t carry fans.”
“You were a bird, but you’re not one now,” said the fairy. “You touched the rose before its petals fell.”
“When did I touch it?” said Tina.
The fairy pointed to a rosebush by which Tina was sitting, and she saw that one rose leaf lay on her lap; it had just dropped from a lovely rose that rested by her shoulder.
“And you came from the fan, too?” she said to the fairy, who picked up the rose leaf and began to fan herself with it.
“Yes,” said the fairy, “I am one of the Zephyrs.”
“Well, you are very pretty,” said Tina.
“I know it,” said the fairy. “At least most people think so. Now, I will take you to see some friends of mine, if you would like to go,” said she; “but you will not see me after we leave the Rose Garden.”
“How will I know your friends, when I see them, and how can I find the way?” asked Tina.
“Oh, I will be there,” said the fairy, “to tell you; only you can’t see me. I will give you a book to look at before we go, and if anything should possibly happen, you have only to look in the book, and it will be all plain to you. Sit there under that tree, and I will come for you in a moment.”
Tina sat down and took the book in her lap, and began to look at it.
It was a very queer book, full of pictures which, when you looked close at them, seemed not to be pictures merely, but the places themselves.
Tina was puzzling over them when the fairy came back.
They passed through the Rose Garden, all the roses nodding to them, and the butterflies flying about their heads to the very gate.
As they passed through the gate, the fairy disappeared.
“Where are you?” asked Tina.
“I am right here beside you,” said a voice. “Go on straight ahead till you come to an open space, where you will see some gray hares feeding.”
It was not long before Tina spied the hares.
“Now, where shall I go?” said she.
“Keep on to that old tree with gnarly roots.”
She did so, and sat down under the tree, wondering what was coming next.
Presently up hopped four hares, and sat down in front of her.
“Well,” said she.
“Well,” said they.
“It is a fine day,” said Tina, not knowing exactly what to say.
The hares looked at each other as much as to say, “She is very silly.”
“Of course it is a fine day,” said one of them. “Did you think we couldn’t see?”
“No,” said Tina, “I only wanted to be polite.”
“Oh,” said the hare, “I’m glad I know.”
Tina put her hand in her pocket and found a piece of bread, which she thought she would give to the hares.
They hopped to her and began to quiver their noses.
“Won’t you have a piece?” said she.
“What is it?” asked they.
“Only bread.”
“What is that? We never saw any before.”
“It is very good,” she replied. “You had better try it.”
One of them began to nibble it, but while he was eating he began to turn from gray to black, and at once they all hopped away.
Tina got up and followed them. “Where is the fairy, I wonder?” she said, looking around.
“Here I am,” said a voice over her head.
She looked up and saw a bird, but that was all.
“Look at your book,” said the voice.
Tina looked at her book and saw a path leading to a fence. A gun was leaning by the fence, and a dead hare was lying on its back near by.
“I don’t think I’ll go there,” she said. “Need I?”
“No,” said the fairy. “You can go the other way.”
She turned the page of her book and saw a path leading toward a village, and as she shut the book, there was the path before her.
She turned into it, and as she walked on she heard merry voices, that seemed to come nearer and nearer. She looked to the right and left, but saw no one.
“It must be children in the village,” she thought. “I will keep on. It sounds as if they were having a pretty good time.”
A few yards from her she saw two squirrels sitting up, eating nuts, and when she came up to them a nut fell right on the top of her head, and she heard a little laugh somewhere above her.
She looked up, and there, in the branches of a tree, were three or four little children gathering nuts.
“Come up,” they said. “You don’t know what fun it is!”
“Shall I go?” said Tina to the fairy.
“Yes,” she said. “These are my friends. My father, the West Wind, is coming to-night to blow down the nuts, and the squirrels will get them all; it is their tree, anyhow.”
Tina went up to the tree, and was going to climb up, when suddenly she felt herself lifted off her feet, and before she could turn around she was sitting on a limb of the tree, with three children near her.
“We have been waiting for you ever so long,” said they. “What made you so late?”
“I stopped to talk to the hares,” said she. “I didn’t know you were waiting.”
Just then a squirrel whisked by them, stopping to look over his shoulder at them, and saying, “Don’t take too many.”
“We won’t,” said they.
“I never knew squirrels and such things could talk,” said Tina.
The children laughed, and said, “You must have lived in a funny place all your life, if you never heard squirrels talk.”
“It was a very nice place,” said Tina.
“Perhaps so,” said the children. “Never mind; let us get down, and see what is in the nuts.”
“Why, what is always in nuts, I suppose,” said Tina.
“Oh, you don’t know,” said they; and they all gave a little jump, and sank lightly to the ground as if they were feathers.
They set to work to crack the nuts, and Tina was amazed to find that in every one was something different.
The first one held a delicious bon-bon; the second a tiny little horse and wagon. The horse seemed alive and trotted off by itself, no one tried to stop it. And nut after nut was cracked, each holding something more wonderful—the strange part of it being that no amount of hard blows on the shell seemed to break what was inside.
After a while they were tired; and, taking Tina by the hand, led her to the village, through the streets to a cottage. They all went in, and the first thing she knew, Tina was lying on a soft bed, feeling, oh, so sleepy. And in a moment more she forgot everything.
