The Little House in the Fairy Wood

by Ethel Cook Eliot

The children laughed at her joke. But it was true,—she was very bright. Her eyes seemed to light the room, or perhaps it was her gown, like an opal fire, blue and pink and purple, changing and glowing, and made of the softest silk.

Ivra nestled close to her knee where she could stroke the gleaming silk. Eric sprawled on the floor at her feet, his face upturned to hers.

Then she told them a story. It was not like any of Helma's World Stories, but the children liked it. It was all about a gorgeous bird she had at home in her tree-house. She told how she had heard it singing one morning in early spring, high up in the branches of her tree, and how she had watched it day after day flying back and forth in the forest, its yellow breast flashing among the green leaves. It had a long golden bill, and its tail was black as jet; and its wings were the softest gray in the world with a feather of jet in either one. Its song was the clearest, the highest, the purest of all the bird songs in the forest. It was a wonderful bird, and she wanted it for her own.

Then she told the children how she had set traps for it, and how it had escaped every time. But at last she had made a dear little cage, all woven of spring flowers and leaves, and put food in it. Still the bird escaped, pulling the food out with its long bill and never getting inside the door. And finally she told them how she did capture that wild, shy bird by learning its song and singing it sitting in her tree-house with the window open, until the bird heard and came flying in wonder to find what other bird was calling it. Then she had closed the window and the bird was hers. It hung now in the pretty cage in her prettiest room, and sometimes sang in the middle of the night.

Eric liked the story, and all the better because it was a true story. And the Beautiful Wicked Witch said he could see the bird himself if he would come to her house. He could stroke its bright breast, and it would sing perhaps. Then there were other things caged in her house, cunning little animals, and some big ones, worth any boy's seeing.

But Ivra answered for Eric, shaking her head hard. "No, no. Mother doesn't want us to visit you."

But Eric said, "May I open the cage door and the window and see the bird flash away? I should like that."

"No. Well, perhaps," said the Beautiful Wicked Witch. "Will you come then?"

"I can't, I suppose, if Mother Helma doesn't want me to. Are you sure she doesn't, Ivra?"

Ivra was sure.