There was a little, whirring sound, Peter's cheek was fanned by a zephyr, and the fairies were gone. He called them, for he wanted to thank Rose-Petal, but there was no reply.
When, later, he and Pat came walking home they created some excitement on the street and in his cottage.
"I said that boy would come to no good," said one old woman who saw him pass. "Let some one fetch the constable. He has stolen a new suit of clothes and should be clapped in jail."
His mother questioned him and he told her that a fairy gave him the clothes and that he had been in the sky on a cloud.
"Poor child, he has had a sunstroke," exclaimed his mother, and she put him to bed and nursed him for a couple of days, but when he arose the new clothes were still there, and he put them on and went back to school.
Little by little the girls and boys found they need not avoid him, and he carried out his plan to give Lawrence the precious knife, and this made Lawrence his friend for life.
Peter was so changed and quiet and thoughtful that many of the grown people who heard what he had told his mother said that he had lost his mind; but the school teacher, who had suffered much from his pranks, in the past, shook her head.
"No indeed," she said earnestly. "He has found it. Watch and see if Peter doesn't come to be the happiest boy in the village."
And sure enough he did.