So the fairies all sat down in a circle, and looked pleasantly about at one another and said: "We are here to cry."
"Now, in the beginning," said Gillibloom, "I will show you how it is done. The first three of you there by the acorn must run at me and knock off my cap."
So the first three ran gaily at him and knocked off his cap, but they might as well not have done it, for another cap, just as green and with just as red a feather, blew right down from somewhere else and settled on his head, and the fairies laughed, and Gillibloom did, too.
"Well," said he, "the next three of you must trip me up, and I'll fall down on the ground, and then I'll show you how to cry."
So the next three tripped him up, and Gillibloom didn't mind it in the least, because, whatever you do in the fairy woods, it never hurts. But he remembered that he was the teacher, and if he didn't begin to teach he would pretty soon be no teacher at all. So he sat there on the ground and made up a dreadful face, and wrinkled his forehead and shut his eyes and pulled down the corners of his mouth. And then he dipped his own moss-cup carefully into the Standing Pool, and brought up a drop of water. And he put his fingers in it and splashed some on his face; and it ran down his cheeks, and he said proudly: "Now I am almost crying."
"Ho!" said the fairies, "is that all? We can do that without being taught."
So they wrinkled up their foreheads and shut their eyes and drew down their mouths and dipped their fingers in the moss-cups, and sprinkled their faces, and made a bellowing noise, and they said proudly: "Now we are almost crying, too."
Gillibloom had opened his eyes and wiped his cheeks on a bit of everlasting petal.
"That was very good," he said, "very good indeed! To-morrow we will go on with the second lesson."
But the twenty-seventh fairy was thinking just then that he might have been dancing all this time, and he said: "Gillibloom, I don't see what good it will do."