"Well, was there ever anything known like this?" cried Mr. Timmy Timmens. "If this isn't the most wonderful fairy doings I ever heard of! I must go right off to find Polly, and tell her the happy news."
So saying, he went down the bright yellow steps, carefully shut the bright blue door behind him, and toddled off as fast as he could to the common.
Now the little old woman, before she had finished digging up the potatuses, found the sun very warm and herself very sleepy, and thinking her husband would be sure to call her when twelve o'clock came, she just got under the shade of the tomatuses, and went off in a nice nap. When she woke, she jumped up in a hurry, exclaiming, "Why, bless me—how could I have forgotten about twelve o'clock? I must make haste into the house this minute." But where was the house? The little old woman stared all around until she nearly stared her eyes out, but it was nowhere to be seen.
"Why, my goodness gracious, stars, and what's-his-names!" squealed the little old woman, letting fall her knife and basket; "where has the house runned to? Timmy must have tried the fairy charm without ever telling me! I mean to go right to the village and see if it is there."
So she gathered up her basket and knife, stuffed the basket, and her apron, and her pockets with all the vegetables she could carry, and started off for the village. Before she was half way there, however, she met her husband. "Where is it?" "There it is!" they called at the same moment, and falling into each other's arms and a mud puddle, they stood for a long time, saying by turns: "Did you ever?" "No, I never!" "Would you believe it?" "Not 'less I see'd it!" and then they took hold of hands and trotted off to the little house that ran on wheels.
There they found it, all high and dry, under a big apple tree, looking as nice as ninepence. With joyful hearts they hurried inside, picked up the saucepans, and cooked all the tomatuses and potatuses for dinner, with an apple dumpling for dessert, made of some of the apples that had fallen off the tree; and after that, the little old man and the little old woman, and the bright green blinds, and the bright red walls, and the bright blue door with the bright brass knocker, and the bright yellow steps, all lived in peace and the middle of the village, believing more firmly than ever in the existence of fairies, and never doubting that their house had been moved solely by the miraculous power of the fairy spell,
"Rorum corum torum snorum,
Highcum tickleme cockolorum!"
And if they're not dead they live there still! Don't you believe it? Well I NEVER did!
THE END OF THE FOURTH BOOK.