“See, it is the colour, indeed,” they said; but, as they looked into the bowl, the beautiful colour began to fade, and soon it was not at all like the colour she had longed for.
“Ah, I see,” said the artist fairy, sadly, “it is of no use to mix together these paints that I have been using. We must gather my material from all the colours of earth. My dear fairies, you must all help.” Many were sent far and wide to bring from the earth clays of every colour they could find. The artist fairy worked on faithfully and patiently.
One day when she had worked harder and longer than usual, she heard one say, “Surely, Artist Fairy, you do not mean to work all the evening? See, the sun is ready to sink.”
“Just a little longer; I feel sure that the colour will come before sunset. Look, does it not begin even now to change?”
The fairies looked into the bowl and all exclaimed at once, “The colour at last! It is indeed the deep colour of the rainbow!”
“Let us carry the bowl to the top of the bank and at moonlight we will rejoice over the new joy that has come to us.”
It was a small bank that overlooked a little brook. Flowers had never grown there and sometimes the fairies felt sad when they looked upon that bare spot in their garden. Perhaps the great tree that spread out its branches took more than its share of the sunshine, but the fairies loved this bank. Moonbeams always seemed to lie so still there. “It’s just the place for our moonlight revel!” said one.
All the creatures of the fairies’ garden came to the rejoicing. The night was glorious. The moon sent down her silvery beams earlier than usual, although the fireflies insisted that there was no need of her shining so brightly, and that she might throw all her beams to the waves in the brook, for they looked so beautiful with a silver covering. Not a grasshopper went to bed, and the frog made the music for the dance, at which the cricket felt sad, for she knew her voice could not be heard above his. The flowers sang their sweetest songs about the new colour that was to come among them. It was not late when the fairies joined hands and danced around the bowl. Perhaps this moonlight revel would have lasted many hours longer, but as the fairies were finishing the dance, one of them touched the precious bowl and alas! the next moment they saw the beautiful colour flow in tiny dark streams down the hillside. For a little while it glistened beneath the rays of the moon, and then it sank into the dark earth. The fairies stood and watched it, helpless.
“It is all lost. It is all gone in a moment,” said the Artist Fairy, as she turned for comfort to the rest.
“No, no, my dear Fairy. What you have once done you can do again.”