And there they came—little plump girls and boys in white frocks and with curly heads—not the least bit afraid of anything: tumbling down and laughing and picking themselves up and laughing, and when they got near the Cave, one of my Working Fairies, just for fun, flew down and lighted on one little girl's fat hand. She jumped for joy when she saw him and called to the others and they came running and tumbling to see what she had found.
"Oh! Look—look!" she called out. "What is he! What is he! He isn't a bird—and he isn't a bee and he isn't a butterfly. He's a little teeny, weeny–weeny–weeny–weeny wee, and he has little green shoes on and little green stockings, and a little green smock and a little green hat and he's laughing and laughing."
And then a boy saw another in the grass—and another under a leaf, and he shouted out, too.
"Oh! here's another—here's another." And then the Workers all began to creep out of the grass and from under the leaves and fly up in swarms and light on the children's arms and hands and hats and play with them and tickle them and laugh until every child was dancing with fun, because they had never seen such things before in their lives.
I flew back to the Lion. He was quite nervous.
"It is a picnic," I said. "And now is your chance. Can you purr?"
"Yes, I can." And he began to make a beautiful purring which sounded like an immense velvet cat over a saucer of cream.
"Come out then," I ordered him. "Smile as sweetly as you can and don't stop purring. Try to look like a wriggling coaxing dog—I will go first and prevent the children from getting frightened."