He was a little fellow, scarce five inches tall. His body was as brown as the bark of a tree, all mixed with green streaks and tarnished gold. You could hardly see him as he went stooping along against the green leaves and the brown branches.
When he got to the sleeping cottage he climbed up the lattice, and poked his sharp little nose into every crevice. He pulled open a loose shutter, tapped once or twice on the windows, and when he found a broken pane—in he went!
In this cottage lived a girl named Toody. She was not very big, as you can believe when I tell you that all the shrubs in the garden were taller than she, and all the flowers nodded over her head. In this same house lived Toody’s cousins, Kitty, and Crocus, and Twig, and Tiny—only Tiny was a little dog, not a little boy. And here, too, lived Grandmother Grey.
“In spectacles, tucker and flower’d-chintz gown,
Who always half smiled when trying to frown.”
Grandmother Grey took care of them all. At five o’clock that morning she woke up. “What noise do I hear below?” she cried. “It is daylight, but nobody is up I know.”
So Grandmother Grey threw off her skullcap and bandage, and nightcap with all its ribbons, bows and strings, and called out loudly: “Come, children, jump up quickly! There’s a rat in the dairy! Come down with me.”
Then Toody, and Crocus, and Kitty, and Twig, in their nightgowns and nightcaps, ran scrambling and laughing down stairs, with Tiny barking and tumbling about between their legs. They crept through the parlor, where all the shutters were closed but one. Like cautious Indians they went silently on, Dame Grey and the children in single file, each holding on to the one before by the tail of her nightgown.
Into the dairy they went, and stared about. Then they huddled together in fear, for behind a milk-jug, under the spout, they saw a quaint little figure.
“It was golden, and greenish, and earthy brown,
With a perking nose and a pointed chin;
It had very bright eyes and a funny frown,
With a russet-apple’s network skin.”
They all started to run in terror, but brave Tiny sprang up and began to chase the Elf round a milkpan.