CHAPTER XXXV A GIFT FROM THE QUEEN OF FAIRIES
MARY FRANCES went to the sewing room.
“My dear friends,” she whispered. “My father and mother have come home, and I’m so glad! But I shall be very sad if I am not to have any more lessons with you.”
“You have learned enough already,” said the Yarn Baby, “to make almost anything if you have the directions.”
“Do you really think that?” asked Mary Frances in surprise.
“It is most certainly quite true
That you know more
Than you think you do,”
said Crow Shay solemnly. “That’s more than can be said of most people,” he added, after a pause.
“But I haven’t any directions,” sighed Mary Frances.
“If I were you,
If I were you,
I’d call the fairy,
Fairly Flew.”
sang Crow Shay, and Mary Frances took the hint.
When the fairy Fairly Flew came at the call of the rhyme, she brought a little satchel in her hands. It was not much larger than Mary Frances’ thimble.
“How do you do this morning, little Miss Mary Frances?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting to be called, for I have a present for you from the Queen of All Fairies.”
“Oh!” gasped Mary Frances, “for me?”
“Yes, in my satchel,” said the fairy.
“It cannot be anything for my dolls,” thought Mary Frances, “because the satchel is too little to hold them.”
Then the fairy took a tiny key from her pocket and unlocked the satchel. She opened it and began to pull a paper out. It was such a thin strong paper that before long the fairy had unrolled yards of it out of the little satchel into a pile on the table.
“Read it,” she said; and when Mary Frances lifted the end, she saw that on it were written directions for making all kinds of things for dolls, and for people, too.
“Oh,” she cried, “the Queen of Fairies couldn’t have pleased me better! What a lot of wonderful things I can make now. Please thank her for me, Fairly Flew.”
“That I shall,” said the fairy. “But wait—I have not yet given you all that is in the bag. Here are some magic needles just like mine—for a little girl who tried and tried again, and kept on trying.”
“Oh, like the Needle-of-Don’t-Have-to-Try!” exclaimed Mary Frances. “How wonderful! Please, please, tell the Queen of All Fairies that I thank her more than I can tell her.”
“Do you know what would please her more than anything else?” asked Fairly Flew.
“No,” Mary Frances said. “Will you please tell me what it is?”
“To tell other little girls how to do the things you have just learned to do,” said the fairy.
“How perfectly delightful!” exclaimed Mary Frances. “I can get the girls to form a knitting club, can’t I?”
“Yes,” said the fairy, “get all your little friends to join, and make many of the pretty things that this paper explains about.”
“How I wish I could tell my mother about our lessons,” said Mary Frances.
“You may tell her. The Queen of Fairies sent word that you might do so if you asked when the paper was——”
Suddenly the fairy disappeared. The Knitting Twins fell down. Wooley Ball and the Yarn Baby fell over on their sides.
“Oh!” cried Mary Frances; then she looked around and saw her mother standing in the door.
“Oh, Mother dear, come in,” she cried. “The most wonderful thing has happened since you’ve been away!” And she told about the crocheting and knitting lessons, and the gifts from the Queen of All Fairies.
“Wasn’t it lovely!” exclaimed her mother. “I am so glad! Just wait a minute,” and she went out of the sewing room.
Very soon she was back, carrying a long package which she handed to the little girl.
“A present from father and me,” she said.
Mary Frances opened the package and lifted out a wonderful infant doll which could open and shut its eyes and could cry when lifted on its side.
“Oh, how dear!” cried Mary Frances. “Nothing could please me so much. I wonder if the Queen of All Fairies knew you were bringing it? There are directions on this paper for making an infant’s outfit.”
“Perhaps she did,” said her mother. “Perhaps she planned the directions with this in mind.”
“Aren’t fairies and mothers wonderful people?” laughed Mary Frances, hugging her mother and the new doll at once.
“Not any more so than good little daughters,” said her mother, kissing her.
“Now, I must go to father,” she added. “Lunch will be ready in a short time.”
