Nelly had run around to the back side of the house. A small window, which opened from a sort of closet where Ulrica kept milk, was open a little. Nelly squeezed the bouquet in, and ran back to Rob.
"I've thrown it in at the closet window," she said.
"What do you suppose she'll think when she sees it? She'll think fairies brought it. Ulrica believes in fairies: she told me so."
"She don't, though: does she?" exclaimed Rob. "What a goose!"
"I think it would be nice to believe in them," replied Nelly. "I do, just a little, wee wee bit. I don't mean really believe, you know; but just a little bit. I guess there used to be fairies, ever so many, many years ago; oh! longer ago than our great, great, great grandmother: don't you?"
"No!" said Rob, very contemptuously: "there never could have been any such thing, not since the world began. It's just made-up stories for girls."
"Oh, Rob!" cried Nelly: "you used to like to hear the story about the singing tree, the talking bird, and the laughing water; don't you know?"
"That ain't a fairy story," said Rob: "it's a—a—I forget what mamma called it. Don't you recollect how she explained it all to us?—how it was all true?"
"Oh! you mean a parable," said Nelly. "That's what mamma said,—that it meant that we should all find singing trees and talking birds and laughing water, if we loved them enough. But it's a fairy story too, besides all that."
The children had a droll time going to people's houses so early. Nobody was up. At Mrs. Clapp's, they had to pound and pound before they could wake anybody. Then Mr. Clapp put his head out of a window to see what had happened.