“Not yet,” Maida responded, “just one more thing for the Little Six.”
She led the way around House Rock to its high end. From there another well-worn path started off. The children followed her down its curving way. Not far from House Rock, it came into a big circular enclosure; grassy and surrounded by trees.
“What’s this, Maida?” Arthur asked.
“It’s a Fairy Ring,” Maida answered solemnly.
“A Fairy Ring,” Dicky repeated in an awed tone. “Is it really a Fairy Ring?”
“That’s what I’ve always called it,” Maida replied. “I don’t know what it is, if it isn’t a Fairy Ring. I have never seen anything like it—except in England and there they always call them Fairy Rings, and besides nobody knows what it was used for.”
Arthur strolled around the entire circumference of the Ring keenly examining the ground and the surrounding trees.
“It looks like a wood clearing to me,” he said in a low tone to Maida when he rejoined the group.
Betsy, silenced for the first time in her five years of experience, suddenly exploded. “Oh goody! goody! goody!” she exclaimed. “Now the fairies will come and play with us. I’ve always wanted to see a fairy. Now I’m going to see one!”
“I don’t believe they’s any such things as fairies,” Timmie declared sturdily.