A Forest Story/Firefly Light
FIREFLY LIGHT.
Sorrow in the forest, deep and silent sorrow. The lights of the hundred fireflies went out. No flashing torch glimmered before a weary fairy, flying home to her thistle-down bed. No twinkling light glowed over elfin paths. No starry flicker cheered Brown Beetle as he cleared away the leaves from the wee lanes. Butterfly sighs and wind sobs swept the hidden world under the tall trees. Not a firefly flew with light.
In the neat cottage under the bracken, the leader of the fireflies lay ill. He tossed and moaned and talked in a fever, and could not tell his mother from Dr. Maybug. The night before, poor Flicker Firefly had stayed out too long, helping the Dwarf find marigold root for his little daughter. The dews were heavy and the night dank, and Flicker was chilled to the heart. Now all the blankets of milkweed floss in the clearing could not take away that chill. There he lay in his little bed, all a-shake and a-shiver, and nothing Dr. Maybug did was the least bit of help. Across the unseen roadways, under ferns and over heather, came the wee friends with their gifts and cures for the sick Flicker.
»I can do nothing more. I cannot save him,« Dr. Maybug said as he shook his head. »Come and see what you can do, if you wish.«
The two little sisters stared with their big eyes, then ran to their mother with their aprons full of fern and poppy seed. The poor patient woman brewed a tea of it, and the three held a cupful to Flicker’s lips. He moaned weakly and turned his head away, and Dr. Maybug shook his head again.
»Alas, he still lies in his thistle-down bed, all a-shake and a-shiver,« he said, and the two little sisters stood in the corner and wept, while the mother sat beside him trying not to cry.
Through the open doorway tiptoed the first friend, Yellow Wasp.
»I have brought Flicker a little golden tray from the dwarfs,« she whispered. »He can put his medicine bottles on it. And I myself have brought him a salve of ribbon grass and balsam. Just a little rubbed on the chest will do wonders.«
Dr. Maybug gently rubbed Flicker’s chest with the salve, and Yellow Wasp watched eagerly, but Flicker still lay with closed eyes. Dr. Maybug turned and said, »Alas, he still lies in his thistle-down bed, all a-shake and a-shiver.« Yellow Wasp stood beside the little sisters and cried.
»Now, don’t worry,« hummed Bee, cheerily, as she came in. »I’ve brought a jar of clearest clover honey, just the thing for a sore throat. Let him swallow just a morsel, Dr. Maybug.«
Those dry hard lips of Flicker Firefly lay closed, and the drop they tried to force into his mouth rolled over his chin and on the pillow cover. Dr. Maybug wiped it off as he said sorrowfully,
»Alas, he still lies in his thistle-down bed, all a-shake and a-shiver. Nothing will cure him, I fear.«
Just then Cockchafer bustled in, and in either hand she carried an acorn cup. »This is terrible,« she chattered. »Poor Flicker so sick, and the other fireflies all sitting outside on the honeysuckle vine, mourning. The forest is black as pitch! But no need to worry longer, for I have brought just the thing. See? A cup of camomile tea, and a cup of peppermint tea. Give them both to him, Dr. Maybug.«
Dr. Maybug asked the kindly noisy lady to be a little more quiet and come to the bedside. Together they forced a few drops of the horrid bitter teas between the clenched lips, but the yellow liquid just dribbled away. Little Flicker lay there, thin, weak, silent. Cockchafer could not stand it. She burst
into tears, as did poor Dr. Maybug and the grieving mother. Outside the fireflies heard their wails, and together they all rocked and moaned in chorus.
»Alas, he still lies in his thistle-down bed, all a-shake and a-shiver! All in a fever, and all a-shake and a-shiver!«
A queer song went running and rhyming through Flicker’s aching head. He began to listen to it. He turned his head a bit to catch its music. He opened his eyes to see who was singing so sadly. There in the corner stood his weeping friends and by his head wept Dr. Maybug. Beyond the casement window wailed the fireflies. Sitting at the foot of his bed was his crying mother, her tears splashing on the counterpane. They were moaning and rocking together, and the song was coming from them.
»Why do you sing that song?« he asked weakly.
»Because you lie in bed all a-shake and a-shiver, and won’t take these medicines and be cured,« cried his mother.
»I can’t stand it!« cried Flicker. »Give me those medicines, quick.« Dr. Maybug propped him up in bed, and Flicker began. First he took the pills the doctor had left. Then he drank of the poppy-seed and fern-seed brew his mother and sisters had made. He reached out to the golden tray and seized the balsam salve, rubbing it on his neck, his chest, his shoulders and his ears. Before they could stop him, he had swallowed half a jar of clover honey, and washed it down with the bitter camomile and peppermint teas. And then he lay back again on the pillow.
Not a soul spoke. Not a soul stirred. Flicker began to breathe evenly, and his heart began to warm steadily and surely. He stopped shivering and he stopped shaking. He smiled a tiny smiled and went to sleep.
»He is cured,« cried Dr. Maybug. »It was my pills.« Then he went home.
»Oh, I know it was my camomile and peppermint teas,« said Cockchafer.
»More than likely my clover honey,« laughed Bee.
»I’d venture to state it was my salve on the golden tray,« stated Yellow Wasp briskly. »Nothing like outside applications.«
»Mother dear, don’t you think it was the fern and poppy seed brew?« whispered the gentle little sisters.
»I’m sure it was everything,« answered the wise mother. »The kindness of so many friends just had to cure poor Flicker.«
The following night Flicker led his hundred torch-bearers through the forest again, as though nothing had happened, but he took great care to shed his clearest rays upon Yellow Wasp and Bee, Cockchafer and the Dwarf, and stationed a special guard about the home of Dr. Maybug.
»Such kindness must be well remembered,« he told them, »and, too, I hope to never again hear that song, »He lies all a-shake and a-shiver.«
