"Really," thought the poor lady, "I could be tempted to believe in the spiteful fairy."
She set to work, and with a shaded candle, for the boys were fast asleep, cleared away some part of the confusion. But it was of course impossible to do it thoroughly. The next morning, without saying anything, she returned to the charge, in the children's absence. By degrees order gained the day, and in the process many of the missing articles turned up, and were quietly restored to their places. Late that evening again came the motherly fairy. Things were not as bad as the night before—they could scarcely have been so, since the morning's tidying. But they were bad enough. All the boys had had in use during the day was "pitched about" as before—again must their mother work for nearly an hour to get the room quite to her mind. And this went on for several days.
During this time there began to be less talk of "the bad fairy," and more than once both David and Leonard expressed their surprise and pleasure at several things having, as they called it, "come back again;" in other words, having been found in their proper places. And at last on the discovery of a "completely lost" treasure—I think it was Leonard's pocket microscope—in a place where he "knew" he had looked in vain, he burst into his mother's room with sparkling eyes.
"Mamma," he exclaimed, "do you know this house really is bewitched? Fancy my having found my microscope just where I looked for it yesterday. And not only that, ever so many other things have turned up. And when we wake in the morning the room doesn't look a bit the same as it does at night. All our things are as neat as can be, and everything ready, however we pitch them about at night."
Mamma listened and said nothing.
"You don't believe me, I suppose," said Leonard.
"I quite believe that a tidy fairy would find plenty to do in your room, if such a being existed," she said.
"But all boys are untidy," said Leonard. "I don't think we're—well,"—for visions of really terrible chaos rose before his eyes as he spoke—"well, not much worse than others. But I know what I'll do," he added to himself. "I'll keep awake to-night and watch."
For a wonder he was able to keep his resolution. He was not quite asleep, though David had been snoring for some time, when he was roused by the door softly opening, and a figure with a shaded light, glided into the room. Leonard, though at first a very little frightened, kept his presence of mind, and neither called out nor started up, but lay still as if asleep. But soon, as he watched the figure moving about, rearranging the untidy heaps of clothes, picking up towels and handkerchiefs, putting boots and shoes neatly together in pairs—all so quickly and deftly, that it might indeed have been a fairy's work, a new feeling overcame him.
"Mamma," he cried—for mamma he soon saw it was—and his voice woke David too, "it is you then—you who are the good fairy! It is a shame for you to have such trouble for us. Oh, mamma, dear, I am ashamed," and out of bed sprang Leonard and David, and set to work with a will to help their mother, in what certainly should not have been left for her to do.