The now-a-days fairy book

Front matter

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Book—-—

Copyright 1

Chapter Eighteen — “Good-Bye” 157 ILLUSTRATIONS

Robin Put His Head Down on His Arm, and Shut His Eyes -

She Lufs Me — She Lufs Me Not - The Three Bears - Beauty and the Beast - Little Red Riding Hood A Modern Cinderella -

Frontispiece Facing page 1 6 38

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THE GAME OF LOOKING FOR FAIRIES

In the Now-a-days World are as many Fays As ever there were in the olden days !

They steal the milk in the dead of night,

And dance in the light Of the crescent white,

And tread their various Fairy ways;

Only most people now are so stern with Elves That they have to be shy about showing themselves !

In the Fairy Wood sleeps the Princess still,

And the Wee Men lodge in the Fairy Hill;

There’s a Magic Tower by a Fairy Moat:

In a little boat The Fairies float,

And Witches work their wicked will I

And the Beast is kind, and Beauty fair,

And the Blue Bird chats with the Talking Bear!

But though these things go on the same,

The Fairy creatures are grown less tame;

They hide and hasten, they creep and fly,

They are shy, and sly,

And you and I

Must play, to see them, a Fairy Game!

But, if with our very whole hearts we play ,

We may see the Fairies any day l

CHAPTER ONE “Come, follow, follow me

You, fairy elves that be;

So nimbly do we passe,

The young and tender stalk Ne’er bends when we do walk;

Yet in the morning may be seen Where we the night before have been.”

— Old Poem.

CHARLIE was lost!

Nobody could think what had become of him, and all Wildwood was much upset because of his disappearance.

“No sooner do we set foot in the place,” wailed the children’s old Irish Nurse, “but one of thim gets into mischief! It’s meself was the goose to come off with the lot of thim, to a house like this, which is overrun with bogies and hobgoblins, as anny one knows! ”

Grandmother was still asleep when Jarvis, her maid, came knocking on the door, with the news that her youngest grandchild was missing.

“ Dear me! ” said the old lady, when she was really awake. “I asked to have the children spend the summer with me because I wanted something to occupy me. I truly believe that I am going to have it. My cap, Jarvis— I will get up!”

Robin and Saidie, the two older children, were scrambling into their clothes in the two big nurseries. This was their first morning in Grandmother's country place, Wildwood, and it was much more exciting than they had expected. They had come to spend their vacation with their Grandmother, and had never seen the splendid old house before. All three of them had looked forward eagerly to the visit, and talked it over a hundred times in advance. And now, the very first morning, they had awakened to find “Little Brother,” as they sometimes called him, gone!

His clothes and his white hat with the yellow bow were also missing ; so evidently he had dressed before going out. It must have been quite an undertaking, for Charlie was only four, and not used to dressing himself And he must have started out very early, for Robin had waked at half after six, and Charlie’s side of the bed was all crumpled up, but empty!

While they are dressing, I must just tell you something about the three Goodman children, for I want you to know them very well.

To begin with the missing Charlie, who for the moment appears to be the most important: — he was very small and plump, and looked like a cherub out of a picture. The two older children called him the Baby, and often laughed at him, and hurt his little feelings ; but they were really proud of him in their hearts, and thought that there was no small boy on earth like their young brother. He was the most fanciful of all of them, and, better than anything else, he loved dreams, and Fairies, and making up stories.

“ If any one of us is ever lucky enough to see a Fairy,” Saidie sometimes said wistfully, “I am sure it will be Little Brother!”

All her life Saidie had longed to see a Fairy. She had hunted and hunted for the path or door into Fairyland, and tried to “dream true,” but she had been quite unsuccessful. Now she had come to live in the country for the first time, she could not help wondering if it would be easier to find elves in Grandmother’s country place than in their town house.

In her heart Saidie would often have liked to play the sort of games that Charlie played — games in which make-believe beings and story-book people played, too ; but, of course, she could never entirely forget that she was Ten! At Ten, one was supposed to be almost beginning to think about being some day Grown Up !

As for Rob, he considered himself a Big Boy now, being nearly nine. And he liked regular “boy things” — real games that you could play with marbles, or balls, or baseball bats, or strings, or paper, or something else solid and practical. When he felt very fanciful indeed, he “made believe” that the nursery bureau was a “fortress,” and acted out his stories of adventure behind it.

Rob and Saidie looked a little alike, with light brown hair, that sometimes looked almost golden, and dark blue eyes. Rob was fairer than his sister, and, of course, ruddier and sturdier; but both were fresh, happy, nice-looking children. Little Charlie was much darker than the others.

Rob, Saidie and Charlie had never even seen their Grandmother until the evening before. They had lived in a city house, and gone to school and kindergarten and dancing class; and had only known the fun of country life when they had stayed at the seaside or in the mountains for a month or two. This new and unfamiliar Grandmother of theirs had for many years been living abroad, and had only just re-opened her old country house — Wildwood. Mr. and Mrs. Goodman, their father and mother, had gone to stay with their aunt, who was ill, and the three Goodman children had come to spend a long, sweet summer in the woods and fields of Massachusetts.

When the children were dressed they ran down stairs, without waiting for Nurse or any one to come for them. The house was very big— larger, they thought, than they had realized in the darkness of their arrival the night before; though, of course, not half so shadowy and creepy, now that they saw it by the comfortable warm light of the sun.

“What funny, echo-y stairs!” whispered Saidie, as they went down into the lower hall. Everything was wide open, for the maids were searching for Charlie. The sweet summer air was blowing in through the long French windows; and such a delicious scent as there was of lilacs and apple-blossoms ! It was May, you see ; and somehow the country smells are more wonderful then than they ever are during the later months.

Out on the broad veranda they ran into Nurse, who was ringing her fat hands, and every now and then wiping her eyes on her beautifully white and clean apron. She looked relieved when she saw them.

“So ye’ve gotten down by yerselves!” she said. “Faith! I’m not cerrrtain that I’d ever have remembered to come and fetch you! I’m

that flustered! The darling! Losted, the firrrst thing; and me

aslape, if you plase! And the poor lamb went and dressed himself, and all ! Whatever was the dear thinking of ? ’’

Poor Nurse had been with their Mother when the latter was a little girl, and these three children were nearly as dear to her as though they had been her own. She was a big, plump, hot-tempered woman from Killarney, and she could tell the nicest fairy tales in the world— when she liked. Of course, she believed in the Little People. What true Irishwoman doesn’t?

The neatly trimmed green lawns of Wildwood stretched down from the veranda in a smooth, gentle slope, cut only by the winding ribbon of the white gravel driveway. On one side was the rose garden, and just beyond a long grape arbor, which hid a path leading to the kitchens; and beyond that glittered a lovely blue Lake !

At the bottom of the lawn was the stone wall that edged the place on that side, and which was hidden for the most part by flowering shrubs, mostly lilacs. To the left all the Wildwood grounds lay like an unexplored country to the children’s eyes. First came a fringe of trees, and beyond, a daisy field that stretched as far as one could see— up, up to the brow of a hill. And still farther to the left, reaching away back of the house and grounds, the fringe of trees grew thicker and thicker, until they were a regular forest ; and that appeared to go back ever and ever so far toward the distant blue hills.

“Oh, Nurse,’’ begged Saidie eagerly. “Mayn’t we go and hunt Little Brother, too? You know he can’t have gone far.’’

“And have you get yerselves losted, too!’’ exclaimed Nurse. “Indade, and you’ll do nothing of the kind ! ”

“ I expect he’s only gone about a bit, to look things over,” said Rob comfortably. But Nurse shook her head.

“ Wherever you go,” she declared, “ I’ll go, too— Heaven help us all! ” The three of them went across the lawn, to follow the wall from one end of the grounds to the other. They skirted the lilacs, and the rosegardens, and lots of tiny flower-beds, and prettily trimmed box- hedges. At last they came to the edge of the great field of daisies.

It was shady under the trees ; and, anyway, the sun was not very high nor hot as yet. Down in this hollow it was cool, and still wet with dew. The grass was full of gay yellow dandelions, looking like little suns; and there were ever so many sheeny-shiny cobwebs. From where they stood they could look back at Wildwood itself. It was a dear, rambling house, very, very old. And behind it were lovely blue glimpses of the Lake.

Nurse was so anxious that she did not say a word when they plunged through the wet grass ; so they had the fun of getting their feet thoroughly drenched for the first time in their lives. You see, although they were worried about Charlie, they did not believe that anything could really have happened to him. And they could not help being excited— this first morning in a strange place !

They stood at the edge of the big, billowy meadow, made of long, thick grass and lovely white-and-gold daisies, and wondered what was going to happen next! Who could tell what was beyond that lovely field that rose in such a long, wind-ruffled slope to meet the bright blue sky?

Suddenly, Saidie gave a little gasp, and pointed excitedly, crying: “Oh, Nurse! Oh, Rob! — Look, look, look!”

On the grass, among the nodding, starry daisies, his white hat crumpled into a lump under his head, and his stockings unfastened and trailing down almost to his stubby shoe-toes, lay the Little Brother, fast asleep!

“Oh, the blessed lamb!” cried Nurse. Saidie was already on her knees beside the small figure.

“Brother, what are you doing here?” she asked very gently.

Charlie waked with a jump, and opened his big, brown eyes.

“Oh, Sai-dee!” he cried. “Oh, Nur-see! Did you see her, too? Wobin— did you see her?”

“See who?” demanded Saidie and Robin in one breath. And even Nurse exclaimed, almost impatiently : “ Do talk a bit more sensibly, Master Charlie, dear ! ”

After anxiety is over, nearly everybody is cross with the person who has caused the worry.

“ How can we tell what you mean?” went on Saidie. “Who is it you have seen?”

“Surely not Grandmother as early as this,” said Rob.

Charlie shook his head.

“She pwomised to come and see me again if I was vewy good,” he declared earnestly, sitting up in the grass. “She was a lufly person, and she said, if we was all vewy good, she would come again. And she said ve flowers is her fwiends. And”

“ Bless us and save us, is the child sick?” cried poor old Nurse. “I never herrrd him talk like this before— did you, me darlings?”

“ He’s not awake yet,” said Saidie.

“Perhaps,” suggested Rob, “if we rolled him in the dew a bit he’d stop dreaming.”

At this lack of sympathy Charlie began to cry.

“She said you’d call it a dweam!” he sobbed. “And it weren’t a dweam 1 It were weal ! And she won’t ever come again, unless you are vewy good, /will be good anyway,” the Little Brother proclaimed; “but you will have to be good, tool”

“Well, I like that!” said Rob.

“Stop crying now, dearie,” coaxed Nurse. “ Tell us who it was that said the flowerrrs were her frinds, and that we would be saying it was a drame, and— and the rest of it? ”

Charlie looked from one to the other of them, his cheeks still wet, but a great and excited importance in his small face.

“She were a Faiwy Person,” he said. “A little girl sort of Faiwy Person; and she said vat— vat I had caught her, ’cause I was beside ve Faiwy Wing ! ”

“Oh,wisha!” muttered Nurse, looking frightened. “Is that it, sure?”

“Nurse, what is a Fairy Ring?” asked Saidie eagerly.

“Faith,” said Nurse, “ ’tis long since I’ve heard of one; but, as I recall, ’tis a place where the Little Men in Green do be having their bit o’ dancing by night.”

Saidie and Rob looked at each other.

“ But what does it do to you? ” said Rob. “ I mean, if you are beside it— or in it— or something ”

“ Whisht, dear! ’Tis that the Good People have a sort of power over the spot ; and I have heard say that if a human child sleeps in one, ’tis put under some spell or other, and is kin to the Fairy Folk henceforward.”

“ I should think that would be fun! ” said Saidie.

“Whisht!” said Nurse again, looking anxious. “’Tis no luck, sure, for flesh and blood to be tied to the Little People, or under their power. ’Tis pranksome, troublesome spalpeens they are— may they forgive me for saying it! ”

“Who is abusing the Little People here? ” asked a merry, sweet voice behind them. “ Have a care they don’t pinch you in your dreams to-night, Nurse Molly! So my little grandson is safe and sound, after all.

Crying? Dear, dear! Has something frightened you, my love? ”

It was Grandmother, who had followed the others out to look for Charlie. She stood leaning on her cane, just behind them; and she was smiling, though a little pale, for she had been really worried.

Grandmother was the daintiest of little old ladies — quite like a Fairy Godmother, Saidie thought. Rob declared that she looked like a picture out of a book. She was quite small, with a great deal of snow-white hair. She dressed in soft, colored old-fashioned silk gowns, trimmed with lace ruffles. And she leaned on a polished black ebony stick with a silver top. And as she smiled her face crinkled up like a faded flower. She was the prettiest and most charming Grandmother any children ever had. When you came near her you noticed that her clothes smelled of lavender and dried rose leaves and lemon verbena.

“What are you crying for, little grandson?” she went on, smiling at Charlie.

“ He’s been dreaming, sure, Ma’am,” explained Nurse, after a curtsey. She and Grandmother were both old-fashioned in their ways, and liked the little forms and courtesies of an older day. “ He keeps talking of a Fairy Ring, Ma’am— though where he’s ever hearrrd of one is more than I can say! ”

“A Fairy Ring!” repeated Grandmother, looking at the little boy gravely. “What about the Fairy Ring, my dear?”

“Nothing,” returned Charlie simply; “only the Faiwy Person said I was beside it. Vat was why I saw her 'fore she could get away! ”

“ He will keep talking like that, Grandmother! ” cried Saidie.

“And, of course,” added Rob, “we know that he’s been fast asleep and dreaming ! ”

“Yes,” said Grandmother quietly. “But you don’t know what he may have dreamed, nor whether his dreams were true!”

“Grandmother!” exclaimed Saidie wonderingly.

Grandmother took a step forward, and pointed with her black stick. When they looked where she pointed, they saw that just in front of them was a faint circle on the grass, as though some one had pressed down the green blades and dainty daisies, patting them flat with gentle touches. The dew lay as brightly there as elsewhere ; the circle, whatever it was, had evidently been made over night.

“ I say, ” began Rob, in amazement.

“It’s a Fairy Ring!” whispered Saidie.

Grandmother held out her hand to Charlie, and he ran to her, and leaned against her affectionately.

“And this little person has been asleep almost on the edge of it! ” said Grandmother. “ I am glad he was not inside it; but as it was, it’s not odd that he should have had Fairy Dreams!”

CHAPTER TWO “ When at home alone I sit

And am very tired of it,

I have just to shut my eyes,

To go sailing through the skies —

To go sailing far away To the pleasant Land of Play;

To the fairy land afar.

Where the Little People are . . .**

— Robert Louis Stevenson.

SAIDIE and Rob looked at each other once more. Grandmother and Nurse had gone back to the house, for it was past breakfast-time. The children were following more slowly.

“ Do you suppose,” the little girl began. Rob broke in.

“Now, you know,” he said severely— “you know that he was asleep and dreaming. I dare say we all had queer dreams last night!”

But Charlie grew quite cross at this.

“Vis,” he declared, “was a diffewent kind of a dweam. /know!” “Well,” said Saidie briskly, “let’s pick some daisies, anyway, and then

hurry home to breakfast. I’m as hungry as can be; aren’t you, Rob?

Take care, Charlie! Don't go near that Fairy Ring! ”

She pointed to the green circle, which seemed to be growing fainter in the morning light— less clear as the sun rose. Her little brother regarded it gravely.

“Vat,” he said dreamily, “was where she was standing! ”

Saidie gave him a gentle little shake.

“Oh, Charlie! ” she exclaimed. “ Do stop being so— so creepy 1 ” They picked as many daisies as they could carry, but lost most of them going home.

Charlie insisted on telling fortunes with nearly all his daisies: “She loves me— she loves me not,” he repeated over and over again. Only he said: “She lufs me— she lufs me not!” because Charlie’s “V’s” were always in the wrong places. He repeated the silly little phrase in a singsong voice, until Saidie lost patience.

“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “Please stop saying that silly thing. Who ‘ lufs ’ you and ‘ lufs ’ you not ? ”

“ My Faiwy Person, of course ! ” said Charlie in an aggrieved way. “She is a lufly person, and she says all ve flo-wers is her fwiends! Ps talking to ve daisies about her! ”

And he began pulling another white-and-gold blossom to pieces.

“What started you off this morning?” asked Rob curiously, as they walked back across the lawn.

“ Don’t know what,” answered his small brother. “ Somefin.”

“Tell us about it, Little Brother!” begged Saidie quite meekly. After all, Charlie had come nearest of any of them to having an adventure !

He could not tell them anything clearly. Something, he could not tell what, had aroused him in the early dawn, and urged him to get out of bed and go hunting Fairies by himself. He had always had faith in the Little People, had Charlie, and had been sure that if they wanted him to find them, they would find means to point out the way to him.

And the Good People, you know, unlike mortals, always reward those who have confidence in them !

A dozen times Charlie found a sign showing him what direction to take. Sometimes it would be a gust of wind blowing a leaf along before him, and seeming to almost carry him with it; sometimes it would be a sudden, quick bird-note, inviting him to go around a corner ; sometimes a handful of apple-blossoms scattered on the grass to right or left by an unseen hand. And the little boy had followed obediently, until he had found himself close to the daisy-field — at the edge of the Fairy Ring. . . . After this his story grew strange and confused. He could not tell whether he had gone to sleep in the early morning shadows, or whether what he had seen had been truly a Fairy Vision. Anyway, he had had an adventure, and he was extremely proud of itl

For that matter they all felt that they were in the beginning of an adventure, or series of adventures. It was a queer, delightful feeling — a sense of excitement, of uncertainty, of wondering what was going to happen next. And in all this world, let me tell you, there is nothing so thrilling as that Feeling. Big, brave men fit out ships and go hunting treasure, just to know it for a while; and explorers risk their lives because it is too strong for them; and writers spend years trying to put it into books. . . . Grown-Ups sometimes call it the Spirit of Adventure; but that is a poor little phrase to describe a very wonderful thing.

“ Nurse,” whispered Saidie, as she was helping Nurse Molly to unpack later in the day, “do you suppose that it was really a Fairy Ring?”

‘‘How can I tell, Miss Saidie, darling?” said Nurse. “Sure, there’s always been quare things about Wildwood, and that’s a fact ! ”

Grandmother was the most delightful Grandmother in the world they decided. She seemed to understand everything, and take an interest in everything. She hunted up a wonderful old picture-book for Charlie; promised to show Saidie how to make pot-pourri as soon as the roses bloomed ; and ordered old Haines, the head gardener, to see about putting up a swing without delay.

The first day passed like enchantment. Before they knew it, dusk had come, and they were sitting around the open window in the bigger of the two nurseries, listening to the tree-toads and whip-poor-wills, and drinking in the smell of the sweet, damp country evening.

The nursery clock struck eight, and they all jumped.

“I suppose Nurse will be coming any minute now to put us to bed,” complained Saidie.

“Oh, dearl” sighed Charlie.

“Our bed-time at home isn’t till nearly nine,” protested Rob.

“ But Mother told us that Grandmother believed in early hours in the country,” said Saidie. “Anyway, it’s queer and creepy here at night. I’d rather go to bed, I think. I know I am going to be afraid of these big halls and staircases in the dark!”

“I'm not,” said Charlie unexpectedly. ‘‘I like ve dark. It seems like Faiwies! ”

“Good, little grandson!” said a voice behind them. “That is the way to feel about the dark — it’s just a place for Fairies!”

Grandmother was standing there with a lighted candle, which shone on her face and showed that she was smiling merrily at them. She had an odd way of slipping up behind one like that, had Grandmother; only one never minded, she was— as Saidie said— “such a Dear! ”

She put the candle on the table, and sat down among them.

“Well,” she went on, cheerfully, “we were talking about Fairies.”

“Grandmother,” said Saidie timidly, “this morning, and again just now, you spoke as though— as though it were not silly to— to believe in Fairies.”

“Silly!” said Grandmother. “Bless me! If it’s silly, I have been silly for sixty years! ”

“Do you mean that you really believe in them?” asked Saidie eagerly.

“ Nonsense, Saidie ! ” cut in Rob. “ Of course, Grandmother doesn’t! ”

“ But, of course, Grandmother does ! ” cried the dear little old lady.

The children looked at each other in wonder.

“There are just as many Fairies nowadays,” went on Grandmother, “ as ever there were in the days the story books tell about. I know a lot of Fairies myself. There are the good sprites of Laughter, and Love, and Generosity, and Patience; and the bad elves, Temper, and Cowardice, and Pride and Hard-Heartedness; and a great many more, good and bad! ”

“ But the— the regular kind?” questioned Saidie.

Grandmother’s eyes twinkled.

“ Oh, they are around, too, if you will only look for them! ”

“ But I have looked,” said Saidie, sadly.

“ Have you?” said Grandmother. “And where have you looked, my love?”

“Oh, everywhere!” said Saidie, largely.

“Have you looked in the clock?” demanded Grandmother. “And among the strawberry plants, and under the ruffle of your new party dress? And up the chimney? And in the toy-closet? The Little People choose all sorts of odd corners for their hiding-places now-a-days, you know. Two or three hundred years ago you could see them any clear night, by moonlight, at the stroke of twelve. But now they have to be more secretive, so they chose queer times, and unlikely places. Why I, myself, have seen plenty and plenty of elves by candle-light. I confess they do like candles better than electric light !— Though I saw one once under an arc light in New York. Poor dear, it did look so lonely and homesick! ”

“Grandmother!” said Saidie, reproachfully, “you’re laughing at us!”

“Am I, my dear?” said Grandmother, smiling. She looked very kind — like a gentle and sweet old fairy herself. “Well, even if I were— Laughter is one of the very nicest Fairies I know! Now, it is getting late. But before Nurse shoos me out, and hustles you off to bed, I want to propose a Game— a Game we can all play, all the time. It is the Fairy Game! ”

“ The Fairy Game! ” repeated all three children, quite mystified.

“Yes. We all like fairies; now, why not make it our business to look up as many of them as we can, and see how many of the old fairy tales come true in our every day lives? ”

“Oh, Grandmother, how lovely!” sighed Sadie, rapturously.

“How do you like it, Rob?” asked Grandmother.

He grinned rather shyly.

“It’s all right,” he confessed. “Just as— as a game, you know!”

“Aha! ” laughed Grandmother. “You are afraid it is rather a babyish sort of play for a big boy like you, Master Rob ! Nonsense ! Big men, and good men, and wise men, have all been glad to play it before now! Come, I’ll make you the leader, because you are named for the most famous Fairy in the world— one that Shakespeare wrote about.”

“But he was named Puck,” said Robin, who had read Lamb’s Tales.

“Yes, for short! Think a minute. You are named Robert Goodman: it doesn’t need much changing to make it Robin Goodfellow!”

Saidie clapped her hands, and even Rob looked pleased, or a little shame-faced. There might be more in the Fairy Game than he had at first supposed.

Grandmother happened to glance at Charlie. He looked as though he were going to cry. As usual, his brother and sister had forgotten him!

“As for Charlie,’’ went on Grandmother, “we shall call him ‘Prince Charming ’ from now on, because there has to be a Fairy Prince in every fairy tale, and I believe they are all called Charming! ’’

Charlie — or Charming, as we must now call him, for they began to play the new game immediately — smiled his delight, and cuddled up against Grandmother’s skirts.

“And, as for Saidie,” said Grandmother, “her name, Sarah, means Princess, or so I have been told; and, anyway, Saidie sounds as if it came from Scheherezade, who was a famous lady in the most wonderful Fairy Book ever written. So you see you have all been given fairy-tale names without knowing it! We must take that as a sign of good luck. Perhaps it will please the Good People — that is what the elves like best to be called, you know.”

“But why,” asked Robin Goodfellow, “do you have to play the ‘Fairy Game’? I should think that you, Grandmother, could see Fairies— I mean the Good People— whenever you liked.”

“You see,” Grandmother explained, very seriously, “Wildwood used to be full of Fairies— quite a Headquarters for the Little People, in fact. But in those days children lived here! We were a big family; for this was when I was young, my loves ! And, of course, we saw any number of Fairies then. In fact, we saw them every day, I do believe, and every night too ! But those good days were not to last. My own children only lived here for a few years, and they saw the Little Folk less often. Then, one by one, they grew up, and there were no more children at all left at Wildwood. And so there was an end of the Fairies! “For many years, there have been no little people, mortal or elfin, in this house ; I confess I have missed both kinds. But now— well, who knows, my loves? There are children once more at Wildwood. Soon— yes, I am sure, quite soon— there will be Fairies, too!”