“Before you begin, Letty,” broke in Jane, “please make Kit promise one thing—that he won’t interrupt.”
“Huh, I’d like to know who was the first to interrupt,” mocked Christopher.
“I didn’t interrupt. The story hadn’t begun yet. Make him promise, Letty, do.”
“I don’t see why I have to promise.”
“Because it spoils a story so, Kit. Please promise. Letty’s going to recite the story, just as we do our poetry at school, and she might forget something if she had to stop in the middle. Besides, explanations cut up a story so. Come on, say you won’t interrupt, like a good boy. I know you won’t if you only promise.”
“Well, I’ll not interrupt if you don’t,” conceded Christopher. “Go on, Letty, let’s hear what happened to Thistledown.”
[CHAPTER X—THISTLEDOWN]
“Well,” commenced Letty cheerfully, “it began like this:
“Thistledown was a roguish elf and, I am afraid, rather a selfish little fellow. The sight of good examples did not make him want to be useful or helpful at all. Indeed, nothing could make him work except to threaten to take away his liberty. For Thistledown prized his liberty dearly. Not from the high, noble motives of honor and self-respect that are the reasons why most people insist upon having their rights, but because to Thistledown his liberty meant his happiness. It meant nice long, warm hours in which to float idly about the great sunshiny world with never a thought or care in his feather-brained head.
“He was not a bothersome elf, as idle folk are so apt to be. He was too lazy to tease—except to give an occasional passing tickle to the long nose of some serious old gnome bent over his work, when Thistledown’s merry laugh at the goblin’s sneeze and start of surprise was so jolly that the gnome had to laugh too, and so no cross words were spoken.