_THE FAIRY WHO WAS LOOKING FOR A HOME_
Little Fairy Flitterwing had no home. Whenever he settled down in aplace something happened to turn him out. If he found a comfortablerosebud some one would come and pick it, and then it died and he washomeless again. If he chose a pink-edged daisy to live in, the gardenerwould mow the lawn at once. He grew very tired of wandering about thegarden, and he determined at last to go out into the world in search ofa home.
It was quite a small garden, in the middle of a town. Flitterwing feltrather afraid of venturing into the streets, because he knew there wouldnot be many fairies there, and not many nice places for a fairy to livein. So he was a little sad and anxious as he flew over the high brickwall of the garden and looked about him. He found himself in a queerlittle yard, not nearly as nice as the garden, with a pavement of roundstones and an ugly brick house at one end of it. There never was a moreunlikely place for a fairy to find a comfortable home. Flitterwing wason the point of flying back again over the garden wall, when he caughtsight of something green at the further end of the courtyard. Some grasshad grown up among the stones.
"The very place for me!" said Flitterwing to himself. "No one is likelyto disturb me here, and I can fly across to the garden whenever I feellonely."
So he found a cosy corner between two stones, where the grass was thickand soft, and there he made up his mind to stay. It was not, of course,the very best kind of place for a fairy, but, after all, it was quietand near his friends, and he was terribly tired of moving about fromrose to rose and from daisy to daisy. So he thought he would make thebest of it.
Very soon he felt quite at home in the grass-patch at the end of theyard. Every morning, of course, he had to attend to the grass and seethat it was always fresh and green, for it is the business of everyfairy to take care of the place he lives in. He does it instead ofpaying rent. Then, after polishing his wings nicely and making themshine like opals, he would fly across the brick wall and have a chatwith the grass-fairies and flower-fairies in the garden.
His life went on in this quiet and comfortable way for some time.
But one morning poor Flitterwing received a great shock. He was verybusy cleaning the grass with a dewdrop, and thinking how strong and tallthe blades had grown since he first began to take care of them. Theywere a good deal taller than himself now, and he was not able to seeover them. So, when he heard a heavy footstep clattering across theyard, he peered between the blades of grass to see who was coming.
"Oh dear, oh dear," he cried, "here's that dreadful gardener! I'm surehe's going to turn me out!"
He quickly dropped the crumpled cobweb soaked in dewdrop with which hewas rubbing the green blades, and folding his wings closely round him hehid himself in the grass, and waited to see what was going to happen.
The gardener was carrying a basket in one hand, and in the other a toolwith dreadful prongs. He was going to pull up the grass that had grownamong the stones! Poor Flitterwing's nice new home was going to bespoilt!
One by one the tufts were dragged up by the roots, while the sharpprongs clinked against the stones and the gardener's fingers crumpled upthe blades of grass that had looked so green and fresh a few minutesbefore. Flitterwing was terribly frightened.
"The sooner I get out of this the better," he said to himself, skippingaway from the gardener's big fingers. Then he spread his wings and flewup and away, over the wall and over the garden and on and on. He went onflying, flying, till all his friends were left far behind and he came tostrange streets such as he had never seen before. Still he went onflying, flying. You see he was extremely anxious to be very far awayfrom the gardener with the big fingers and the terrible, sharp prongs.
At last he became dreadfully tired. It would be impossible, he felt, togo on flying much longer, so he looked about him for shelter. He saw anopen window, and beyond it a large cool room. Here was shelter at allevents, so he flew straight in. There were a number of tables and chairsin the room, and at each table a man sat writing; but Flitterwing wastoo much frightened to see anything. He only wanted to find a placewhere he could hide and rest. A large ink-pot stood on a table, and justinside the ink-pot was a little ledge where a fairy might restcomfortably. Flitterwing lost no time; he darted into the ink-pot andsat down on the ledge. In a few moments he folded his tired wings abouthim and fell fast asleep.
Now, the room into which Flitterwing had flown was a place where a greatdeal of business was done. Every day a number of men sat there adding upfigures and writing letters about dull things that neither you nor Icould understand. If you have done many sums, you will agree with methat no sensible man could really like spending all his time in addingup pounds, shillings, and pence. Very few of the men in this big roomreally liked it. Some of them wanted to be playing cricket or golf, somewould rather have been reading books or listening to beautiful music;and every one of them was longing to be in the country among the flowersand the fairies. And there was one among them--a little man with a paleface and a thin coat--who wished above all things to be making poetry.There were two good reasons against his doing this. In the first place,he was obliged to earn money, and this is more easily done by adding upfigures than by making poetry; and in the second place, he did not inthe least know how poetry ought to be made.
On the sunny morning when Flitterwing took refuge in the ink-pot the Manin the Thin Coat was very busy. There were rows and rows of figureswaiting to be added up, so that there seemed to be no end to them. Alarge sheet of paper was before him on which he was doing these sums,and the figures were arranged in terribly long columns--and no doubt youknow how unpleasant that is. Suddenly something glittered in the air fora moment and then disappeared. It was so bright that it caught his eyeand made him lose his place. He thought it was some beautiful kind ofinsect with the sunshine caught in its wings.
"It was like a messenger from the summer!" he said to himself.
Then he dipped his pen in the ink-pot and went back to his sums.
He had been working busily for some time when he noticed something verycurious. His pen was not writing figures at all! He was thinking aboutfigures, and he wished to put figures on the paper, so it was a verystrange thing that his pen was writing words all the time. The wordswere arranged in short lines with a capital letter at the beginning ofeach line.
"Dear me, how annoying!" he said to himself. "What can I have beenthinking of? This will never do."
So he took a fresh sheet and began again.
He imagined that he was copying all the figures on to the clean sheet ofpaper, for that was what he intended to do. He wrote the figures veryquickly, as he thought, because he wanted to make up for lost time. Thenhe glanced at what he had written--and threw down his pen angrily.
There were no figures at all on the paper; nothing but line after lineof words. He began to think he must have got a sunstroke.
"This is really terrible!" he muttered. "I must pay more attention towhat I am doing."
So he took another clean sheet of paper and began again.
It was no use; the pen refused to make a single figure.
Then the Man in the Thin Coat was in despair. He pushed the paper awayfrom him and threw himself back in his chair.
"There is something very serious the matter with me," he said tohimself. He did not notice that another man had come up to the table andwas gathering together the sheets of paper that lay on it. This was theperson who paid the Man in the Thin Coat for doing his sums for him. Hehad a round face and a big waistcoat.
"Come, come! what's this?" he said, looking at the sheets of paper."Poetry, I declare! So you're a poet, are you? That's all very well, butI don't pay you to write poetry."
The poor Man in the Thin Coat looked very much disturbed. When you cometo think of it, it is a disturbing thing to find you are writing poetrywhen you imagine you are doing sums.
"I couldn't help it," he said meekly.
"Yes, yes, that's the excuse they all make," said the Man with the BigW
aistcoat. Then he took up the papers and began to read. There wassilence in the room while he was reading the poem that the Man in theThin Coat had written by mistake; every one left off working, andwatched with great interest to see what would happen. The silence lastedfor some time.
"Dear me!" said the Man with the Big Waistcoat at last. "This is a verybeautiful poem!"
Then he began to read aloud.
The poem was about the summer; about the sunshine and the blue sky andthe singing larks that were far away from that ugly room. It seemed asthough the far-off fields and the glory of the sun had been reallybrought there, to the tired men who sat listening. And to each man as helistened came a dream of the thing he loved best. To one man the roomseemed to have turned into a garden; the scent of a thousand roses wasin the air, and the colours of a thousand flowers. Another man thoughthe was in a field, lying under a tree and looking at the pattern of theleaves against the sky. And another saw the sunshine sparkling on thedear sea, and the little ripples running races on the sand. But the Manin the Thin Coat saw more things than any of them.
And while they were all listening to the beautiful poem about thesummer, little Fairy Flitterwing slipped out of the ink-pot and flew offto play with a sunbeam on the window-sill. The sunbeam showed him a verycomfortable scarlet geranium that was growing in a window not far off,so Flitterwing went to live in it, and found a safe home at last.
And the Man in the Thin Coat went back to his sums. He was happier thanhe had ever been before, because he had written a beautiful poem. He wasnever able to write any more poetry, and he thought this was rather odduntil, years afterwards, his little daughter guessed the truth. He hadjust finished reading to her his poem about the summer.
"Why, Daddy," she said, "there must have been a fairy in your ink-potwhen you wrote that!"