A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia

by Alice Turner Curtis

CHAPTER XV

A FAIRY STORY

When Gilbert took the pan of candy-molds from the open window of Mrs. Pennell's kitchen, and, reaching in captured the heart-shaped box from the table, his only intention was to keep them just long enough to puzzle Ruth and Winifred and then return them. When the girls came back to the kitchen he had run into the shed, and set box and pan in the open drawer of the work-bench and closed it quickly, and had then gone home to attend to some garden work, meaning to come back in an hour at the longest; but his mother had sent him on an errand, and it was noon before Gilbert remembered the candy; and then Winifred was telling the story of its disappearance:

"You wouldn't think any one would be so mean as to take our candy," she concluded, and Gilbert felt his face flush uncomfortably, and realized that it was going to be very difficult to explain what he had intended for a joke to Ruth and Winifred. In some way he must get that candy and box back to the place from which he had taken it, or else tell the girls what he had done; and this last alternative would be unpleasant. All that afternoon he was on the alert for a chance to slip into the Pennells' garden, enter the shed and rescue the hidden sweets; but the day was warm and pleasant, and Ruth and Winifred with their dolls and Hero were out-of-doors playing about in the shade of the maple tree until it was too late for Gilbert to carry out his plan; so that he was as uneasy and troubled as Ruth or Winifred over the missing candy, and not until evening could he think of any way to recover it.

He was just closing the stable for the night when he noticed the shallow basket of woven grass and twigs which Winifred had made on the eventful afternoon's journey along the river road. The violets and wild honeysuckle were now only dried up stems; but the basket looked serviceable and attractive. Gilbert smiled as he picked it up. He knew now exactly what he would do: he would get up very early the next morning, gather daffodils and iris and then take the basket to Mrs. Pennell's shed,—take the candy from the molds, fill the box, and setting the box in Winifred's grass basket cover it with flowers; then he would hang it to the knocker of the Pennells' front door.

"The girls will think the fairies did it for a May-day surprise," he chuckled to himself, remembering that Winifred could never quite decide about fairies: if there really were such wonderful little people or not.

So Gilbert was up before sunrise the next morning, and with a friendly word to Hero, found it an easy matter to enter the shed quietly and take the candy and box from the bench drawer. In a few moments he had filled the box skilfully without breaking one of the tiny hearts, set it in the basket and covered it with the spring blossoms. He was just about to leave the shed when he heard a voice, and peering out saw Ruth bowing to the lilac tree and saying in a low voice:

"Fairies, fairies, here I bow. Will you kindly pardon now That I did not hear or see When you came to visit me?"

"Jiminy! It's that old fairy story Mother tells; and Ruth believes it," thought Gilbert, as he watched Ruth bowing low to a startled robin, which flew up to a higher branch in the hawthorn tree. She was so much absorbed in what she was doing that she did not hear the stealthy step behind her on the soft grass as Gilbert swiftly set down the mold pan and the basket, and flew back to the shop. He had just reached its shelter when Ruth turned to go back to the house and saw the basket.

She looked at it for a moment as if she could hardly believe her eyes; and as she stooped to pick it up Ruth fully expected that basket, pan and tin molds would all vanish from sight. But no! They were real; and, quite as Ruth expected, the box, filled with candy hearts, was under the flowers.