FAIRIES I HAVE MET
were like; but when she saw them, soft and pink and downy, like lovely sleeping birds, she was not frightened any more.
"Oh, but they are pretty things!" she said to herself. "How I hope I shall be able to keep them safely till my hair is grey! They look as if a breath would blow them away, out of the window and over the hill!"
For a long time she was very careful not to let any one see her pretty rosy Dreams. Indeed, she never spoke of them; and the old farmer's wife, whose servant she was, little guessed that anything so strange as a box of Dreams was hidden upstairs in the garret, underneath Gretel's Sunday frock.
The farmer and his wife had a son about the same age as Gretel. His name was Eitel. He was a big, clumsy sort of boy, and not very clever; but Gretel had very few friends, so when Eitel was kind to her and talked to her over the fire in the evenings she was very glad. Sometimes he carried the big bucket for her when she went out to feed the pigs, and sometimes in the summer they made hay together in the field on the hillside. In this way they became great friends. Gretel told Eitel everything that had happened to her since she was a little child; and one day she told him about her box of Dreams.
"Let me see them, Gretel dear," said Eitel.
"Oh, but I mustn't!" said Gretel. "No one must see them till my hair is grey. If any one sees them they will fly away, out of the window and over the hill."
"What are they like?" asked Eitel. "And what are they for?"
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