Two little cousins were going to school the other day, and as they passed my window I watched their faces. One of the boys, whose name was Harold, looked very happy. I was as sure as though he had told me so that he had been helped by a pair of twin fairies who are always very busy at this time of the year. The two little creatures flit from one school-room to another, and the boys and girls whom they assist may be known by several signs. They hold their heads up bravely, they walk with light steps, and they are never seen to frown or pout. I was sure by Harold's eyes that he and the fairies I mean were close friends.
Edgar, the other boy, went to school with an air which gave me pain. I was not at all surprised to hear him say that he had a cross teacher, and that he did not like his lessons, and could not learn them. Poor fellow! A naughty fairy had captured him, and I put on my spectacles and took my knitting while I thought of a plan to set him free from her power.
The fairies who help children at school are bright-eyed creatures, who teach you two things—the first is how to hold fast, the second is how to hold on. Fairy Holdfast will not let her friends look at a half-dozen things at once. She says, "Now, my boys and girls, ten times one is ten. Think of that, and of nothing else. Look, straight at the teacher if in the class-room; look straight at the book if it is study hour. I will hover about, and keep everybody who wants to bother you out of sight."
Fairy Holdon says, sweetly, "Dear little ones, Rome was not built in a day. One brick at a time, and the house is completed. One day at a time, and the century is finished. One lesson at a time, perfectly learned, and the little boy becomes a great scholar."
Some people call the Fairy Holdfast Attention, and the Fairy Holdon Diligence, but I think the other names are prettier and much easier to remember, don't you?
As for the wicked fairy who is the foe of all good boys and girls, her name is Fairy Scatterbrain, though some people call her Idleness. She is not nearly so strong as the kind fairies I have been talking about, and if you make an effort to snap the threads she weaves about you, they will break like spiders' webs. Only, you must make the effort. Nobody can do it for you.
I intend to whisper this secret to Edgar on the first opportunity.
New Brighton, Staten Island.