The New-Year's Bargain/Chapter 7

by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

CHAPTER VII.

THE LAST OF THE FAIRIES.

THAT visit of June's was a bright spot, and the month that followed a lovely one. Never had grass been greener or wild flowers bloomed so thickly. The trees were full of birds, which sang all day, and all night too, as if too happy to sleep. Fragrant winds seemed to woo the children out of doors. They passed half their time in the wood; and often while wandering about, fancying that they caught the gleam of June's smile or saw the skirt of her robe vanishing among the trees, they would pursue; and, though nothing but a dewdrop or a bough of white blossoms waving to and fro could be found, still the sense of her presence never left them, and it made the sweetness of the season still more sweet.

Wherever Thelda went, her pets went too.

"The children loved us, and listened for our voices. Their bright, untired eyes could
perceive us, as we swung from the blue-bells."

The little maid in gray kirtle and scarlet jacket, with a yellow chicken on each shoulder, and the white lamb following close behind, rubbing its cold, soft nose against her hand, made so pretty a picture that it seemed sad it should ever grow old or in any way alter. But little girls cannot always be little, nor is it desirable they should; and, for the lamb, practical Thekla had no notion of keeping him for a useless plaything. Already she had begun to talk of the stockings Grandfather was to have out of the first shearing when lammie should become a sheep, and the comforter which she would knit for Max to tie about his throat on cold days. And, as if to please her, lammie made haste to be big.

As the days came one by one, long and beautiful, it seemed hard to let them go. "Oh, not yet!" the children cried each night to the sun as he dipped below the horizon; and each night he tarried longer and longer, as if in answer to their prayer. But in the end he always had to go. And so, too, the sweet Month finally said "Good-by;" and it was time for July to make her appearance.

The few sticks which boiled the porridge had blackened into ashes upon the hearth, and the children sat hand in hand in the open doorway. A breeze was stirring. Sweet smells came on its wings from the woods. It was the warmest evening yet, and the first upon which the fire had been suffered to go utterly out.

By and by they saw July coming. She had taken off her hat for coolness, and was fanning herself with the broad brim. It was made of the leaves of some foreign tree, and shaded her bright, sunburnt face like a green roof. Thekla privately thought that it must have been taken off a good many times before, or July wouldn't be so brown.

"Well, I'm glad to get here," she said, seating herself and flapping the hat to and fro: "it's almost too warm for long walks. Not that I can afford to sit still in any case: I'm too active a person for that. But just here it is really quite comfortable. I supposed I should find you all burnt up, like the people outside there," pointing to the wood; "so by way of a present I brought these," and she produced two palm-leaf fans.

The children were delighted. They had never seen any before. "Are they really made of leaves?" they asked.

"To be sure," said July. "How odd that you shouldn't know! Why, over in America every man, woman, and child has one. They are plenty as blackberries,—babies cry for them. And, speaking of blackberries, here is a pocketful I picked as I came along. You can be eating them to keep yourselves from getting impatient; for I'm all out of breath, and can't begin yet." Saying which, she turned the pocket inside out on the door-step.

This was good fun. Blackberries grew too far off to be things of every day, and these were the first of the season. One after another, the shining black beads disappeared down the little throats. By the time the last had vanished, July was rested, and ready to commence.

"You must know," she said, "that way up North, in a region which I sometimes visit, are two beautiful peaks called the 'Marble Mountains.' No mountains in all the country are so beautiful as they. When the full noon smites them, they gleam like snow; and their glistening seams give out sharp glints, between which lie shadows of the purest, softest gray. But at sunset and sunrise they are all lovely pink, like roses; and so enchanting do they look, that miles and miles away the children watch them, and fancy the fairies must live there.

"It is a wild spot, and few people have ever reached it. Excepting me: I go everywhere. But for a long time I contented myself with hasty calls, and did not force my way to the heart of the place, where the thick shadows lie. Last year, however, I resolved to make more thorough work. Slowly and carefully I toiled through the dense brushwood and the deep glens; and at last, in the very loneliest recess of the mountain, I came upon—what do you think?—a fairy! The little children far away had been right in their guess, you see.

"It was Midsummer-eve, the fairies' own day; and he was celebrating it with an out-door tea. His seat was in the middle of a circle of vivid green grass, the kind that once went by the name of a 'fairy ring.' He was quite an old fairy. It is difficult to determine about ages, but I saw that at a glance. Beside him stood an immense toadstool, upon which was placed his supper of honey posset; but he didn't seem to have much appetite,—in fact, he was dreadfully out of spirits, as I found after we had talked a little while.

"'I am the last of the little men in green,' he said, glancing down at his clothes, which were indeed of a delicate duckweed tint. 'Many, many centuries have I lived on earth in fact, I may say that you see before you that "oldest inhabitant" so frequently referred to in the newspapers. My youth was a happy one,— how happy I do not now like to recall. We fairies then were the great folk in England. Perhaps you have heard of England?'

"I mentioned that I had, and was in the habit of making a visit there every year.

"This pleased the fairy. 'Ah! that is a country,' he went on. 'Such moonlight! such woods! such delightful society! Sherwood Forest now! Many and many a night have I danced and made merry there in the days of bold Robin Hood! But that was long, long ago.

"'When we little people heard that a ship was to cross the sea, and bring a colony of English to settle on these shores, we held a meeting to consider what was to be done. There were children among the colonists. Now it is a fixed rule among us that, wherever children go, fairies must go too.

"'It was a sad and painful thing to leave that dear land where we were honored and believed in, but we are not of the kind who shrink from the call of duty. I was among the earliest volunteers. Ah! if I had known,' said the fairy, shaking his head, 'had guessed, half what lay before us, I should never have "signified in the usual manner"—by raising my right wing—a readiness to go. But I was young in those days,—young and ardent; and my soul was full of courage and adventure.

"'Of the voyage I will not trust myself to speak. None of the remedies—blue-pill, quassia, chloroform, ice on the spine, mustard on the stomach, or keeping-your-eye-immovably-on-a-fixed-object—had been invented, and we suffered agonies. When the ship touched Plymouth Rock, I could hardly drag myself ashore.

"'It was cold, very cold. No going out of doors was possible. We huddled together in the tents, keeping in dark corners, and as much out of sight as we could, for fear of getting our little friends into trouble. For these colonists were a severe folk; and children will talk, you know. And if ever we crept out to crack a tiny joke with one, tell a story to another, or sing a snatch in the ear of the cooing baby, some chatterer was sure to spill and bubble over with fun and merriment; and then, lo! and behold, there would be a catechism lesson to learn, or some stern reproof, which sent us cowering into our retreats to weep over our poor little sobbing friends. So in time the children learned to keep all the secrets we whispered them to themselves; and that did not please us either, for we love jests and laughter and outspoken words.

"'Well, those hard times after a while passed by. The people grew and increased. They conquered the wilderness, and built many towns. A different order of things sprang up. It was then that we fairies reaped the reward of our self-devotion. No longer was it considered sinful to spin fanciful tales, or sing funny rhymes. The children loved us, and listened for our voices. Their bright, untired eyes could perceive us, as we swung from the blue-bells, or pelted each other with the brown pollen of tiger-lilies; and they rejoiced with us. Babies crooned in the sun as we rocked their cradles. And we played no tricks,' declared the fairy, growing excited: 'we were a rational and well-conducted people. Whether the catechism and godly talk we had heard in the tents had sobered us, I know not; but certain it is we had lost some of our mischief. No longer did we tweak the noses of ploughboys, or incite the cow to kick over the milking-pail. No! On the contrary, we were the helpers in all useful work. We made the butter come; we swept the rooms, and straightened the shelves of good housewives; and were a general blessing to the land.

"'Alas! what a poor return have we met for all this! For a new age has dawned, and another kind of child,—a child who reasons and thinks, and studies arithmetic and the science of objects. We have lost our worshippers. Even the babies sprawling in their mothers' laps know better than to believe in us. Long we strove,—we practised all our lore, traced our rings in the grass, dropped fairy favors into little stockings, made bluebottle-fly and dragonfly our messengers,—but all in vain. The wish to see was wanting.

"'Did we spin for hours, and overlay the grass with a silken carpet to dazzle and enchant early peepers? Nobody cared a button; and some parent would be heard explaining, "It is nothing but cobweb, my dear. Come to the library after breakfast, and I'll read you about it in a book of Natural History." 'Yes,' said the fairy, bitterly, 'it had come to that,—the book of Natural History instead of the "Fairy Book"! Or did we spread a tiny table like this, with strawberries ranged in row, and leave it in the path where little travellers were wont to pass, no one heeded it. "Only an old toadstool!" they would cry, and kick it aside with their copper-toed boots. Ah! it was enough to break a fairy's heart!

"'When we lit our tapers, and went out in procession in the evening, we were called fireflies! Our pretty songs, as we rocked in the boughs, were ascribed to the wind; and "Hadn't baby better have on something warmer, dear?" Our fairy favors were treated with scorn. Once I dropped a tester into a little girl's shoe, as she paddled in the brook. Was she pleased? Not at all!! "Here's an ugly yellow leaf in my boot," she said; and she plucked it out and threw it away.

"'What was left for us to do, our occupation gone? Nothing! We resigned ourselves to the inevitable. One by one we deserted the haunts, which alas! knew us no more, and retreated farther and farther from the abodes of men. At last we chose this Marble Mountain for our home. Here long years we dwelt, a numerous colony; for other fugitives joined our retreat. The Banshee inhabited for some months a cave upon that western slope; but her perpetual lamentations made us sad, and at last we united in a remonstrance; and she left for the Ojibeway Country, where she still resides. Bogey too—harmless, though black—was for long our hewer of wood and drawer of water. He now sleeps yonder, under the greenwood tree; while beside him slumbers that forgotten worthy, "The man who lived in the chimney," once the terror of refractory nurseries. Bug-a-boo also joined our band for a while, but deserted us for a situation among the Ku-Klux. Even Santa Claus talked at one time of uniting himself to our number, but he thought better of it. I conclude,' said the fairy, ironically, 'that mankind found out some way of turning him to account, and making him useful, or he would certainly have come.

"'One by one our once merry company drooped and faded. The monotonous life of this place was too sad for them, used as they were to sunny nurseries, gay flower-beds, and the world of fun. The graves of my brothers and sisters lie about me, and here in the midst of them I dwell. It is years since I have left my hermitage or seen a child;—in fact, I don't, believe there is such a thing as a real child left in the land.'

"So saying, the fairy ended his tale with a profound sigh. He pulled his pointed cap (which was exactly like a little red extinguisher) over his eyes, and to all my questions replied not another word. And so I left him sitting alone and silent. Whether he still lives I do not know. His poor body was thin as a grasshopper's; and I suspect when I visit the mountains again this year, I shall find his little skeleton hidden away under a bunch-berry or a blade of grass."

"Oh," sighed Thekla, "how lovely! That was the best yet."

"So saying, the fairy ended his tale with a profound sigh."

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