CHAPTER SECOND.
THE OWLS AND THE GAMBLESOME ELF
The next morning when Teddy awoke it was still very early; so early that even Hannah was not yet stirring.
Outside everything was wrapped in a silvery mist, and now and then a drop of moisture plumped down on the porch roof.
Teddy lay still for a while, growing wider and wider awake, and then he began to stir restlessly and wish that his mother would come. After a while he called her, but the house was so silent that he didn’t like to call very loudly, and there was no answer.
He thought he would call again, and then suddenly he remembered the Counterpane Fairy, and wondered if she would like little boys who called their mothers so early.
He turned over in bed, and raising his knees into a hill stared at the yellow silk square and thought of the wonderful golden castle where she had taken him the day before. He wished he knew what all the bird people would have done when they reached the top of the stairs. He thought they would have put a golden crown on his head and made him king.
And the princess was so beautiful he longed to see her again. How surprised Hannah would have been if she had heard voices, and had come up-stairs to see who it was, and had found the beautiful princess sitting with him, and had seen the golden crown on his head! If she only knew about it she would never call him a mischievous boy again. He had done a great deal more than Hannah could.
“Oh dear, oh dear!” said a little voice just back of his knees; “almost at the top, anyway.” Teddy knew the voice; it was that of the Counterpane Fairy, and there was the top of her brown hood showing over his knees. He watched, breathless with eagerness, until he saw her face appear above them, and then he cried out: “I wondered whether you would come; I’m so glad. Are you going to show me another story, and will you stay a long while?”
The Counterpane Fairy said nothing until she had sat down on top of his knees for a while and caught her breath, and then she said: “Well, well! It’s steeper than it was yesterday. I thought I should never get across that satin square, it was so slippery.”
“Shall I put my knees down?” asked Teddy, moving them.
“For mercy’s sake! no,” said the fairy, clutching at the quilt. “You might upset me. Keep right still and I’ll show you another story.”
“Oh, yes!” cried Teddy; “please do; and let me go to the golden castle again.”
“No, I can’t do that,” said the Counterpane Fairy, “for that was yesterday’s story, and this will be another.”
“But what became of the princess?” asked Teddy.
“Oh! she married the hero, of course,” said the fairy.
“But I thought I was the hero.”
“There, there!” said the fairy, impatiently, “I told you that was yesterday’s story, and if you want to see any more you must choose another square.”
“Well, I will,” said Teddy. “May I choose that green square?”
“Yes,” said the fairy. “Now fix your eyes on it while I count.”
Teddy began to stare at the green square so hard that he scarcely winked, but he heard the Counterpane Fairy counting on in her thin little voice until she reached FORTY-NINE.
The green square spread and grew just as the yellow one had done while she counted, until Teddy seemed drifting off into endless green spaces. Then the Counterpane Fairy clapped her hands and he saw that he was hovering over a grassy hillside.
“Now you are an elf, you know,” he heard the fairy say.
At the bottom of the green hill there was a brook, and at the top was a line of shady green woods. Overhead the sky was very blue, with shining heaps of cottony white clouds; a soft wind was blowing, but the sun was warm, and insects were buzzing past intent on business. A brown bird whirred by and dropped out of sight among the grasses.
Teddy floated through the air lighter than a feather, and he felt so happy that he clapped his hands together and turned head over heels in the air. As he came right side up again he saw a bit of thistle-down drifting on up the hill, and he was so little that when he flew after it and set himself astride of it, it seemed as big as a barrel to him. He floated on up the hill with it, and the wind was like a cushion behind him.
As they reached the edge of the hill the thistle-down caught on a bush, and Teddy almost has his leg wedged between it and a leaf. He jumped off in a hurry, and stood looking about him and wondering what he should do next.
Suddenly he saw something that made him open his eyes wide in astonishment. Four large black-and-yellow butterflies were tied to a knot on an old tree close by, but it was not at the butterflies themselves that he wondered, for he had often seen them flitting about the fields; it was at the way they were loaded down with the strangest things: all sorts of fairy household furniture —little chairs and tables, bedsteads, tiny pots and pans, a great soup-kettle almost as large as a huckleberry, two thistle-down mattresses, and a number of other things. All these were very neatly packed and tied between the butterflies’ wings with spider-web ropes.
In the middle of the knot was a hole, but instead of being round, as a knot-hole generally is, it was square, and there was a little door fitted into it.
Suddenly this door opened, and on the threshold of it stood a beautiful little fairy. She stood there looking about, and then she drew from her pocket a handkerchief, thin and delicate as gossamer, and wiped her eyes. After that she began to sob, and Teddy knew that what he had thought was the buzzing of a bee inside the knot had really been the sound of her weeping.
“Hello!” called the elf.
The fairy stopped sobbing and looked about her. When she saw Teddy she stared at him for a moment and then she began to wipe her eyes and sob again.
Teddy climbed up the branch of a blackberry bush until he was quite close to the knot-hole, and sat down on the stem and stared at her. “What makes you cry?” he asked.
Still the fairy said nothing, but she folded her little handkerchief, though it was quite wet, and put it carefully back into her pocket.
Just then in the doorway at her side appeared another fairy. He was quite different from her, though he, too, was very small. He was as withered as a dried pea, and looked as though he must be at least a hundred years old.
“Is everything packed up?” he asked in a querulous voice. Then his eyes fell on Teddy the elf. He scowled until his little pin-pricks of eyes almost disappeared. “Ugh! there’s one of those nasty gamblesome elves,” he said. “Now mischief’s sure to follow.”
“I’m not a gamblesome elf!” cried Teddy.
“Yes you are!” said the withered old fairy. “You needn’t tell me! Look at your red cap and the way your toes turn down. I say you are a gamblesome elf.”
Teddy looked at his toes and sure enough they did turn down. “I wonder if I am a gamblesome elf,” he thought.
But the old fairy paid no more attention to him. He seemed to be in a great hurry and very cross. He bustled in and out of the knot-hole, bringing a broom and an old coat that had been forgotten, and packed them on the butterflies, and then he helped the lady fairy on to one, and clambered on another himself.
After they were all ready to start he found that he had forgotten to unhitch the butterflies, and grumbling and scolding he clambered down again and untied them. Then he climbed back once more, and away they flew down the hillside and out of sight, the lady fairy weeping all the time as though her heart would break.
“I wonder what she was crying about,” said the gamblesome elf to himself, as he stared after them.
“I can tell you that easily enough,” said a little voice so close to his elbow that it made him jump.
He looked around and saw close to him a brown beetle, sitting on a blackberry leaf. Teddy looked at the beetle for a while in silence, and then he said, “Well, why is it they’re going?”
“It’s all because of old Mrs. Owl,” said the beetle. “She and old Father Owl used to live deep in the woods in a hollow tree, but one time they determined to move out to the edge of the hill, because the air was better, and what tree should they choose for their home but this very one where Granddaddy Thistletop has been living as long as I can remember. Then when the owls were all settled they began to complain. They said that Granddaddy Thistletop and Rosine were so noisy all day that they couldn’t sleep.
“After the little owls hatched out it was worse than ever, for the old mother said that every time Rosine cooked the dinner it made the little owls sneeze, and so the fairies must go.”
“I wouldn’t have gone,” cried Teddy.
“Oh, yes you would,” said the beetle. “The owls could have stopped up the doors and windows, or they could —well, they could have done almost anything, they’re so big. You may go in and look at the house, if you want to. I have to go down the bush and see old Mrs. Ant. Good-bye! I’ll see you again after a while.”
When the beetle had gone, Teddy climbed up to the knot-hole and went in. There was a long entry as narrow and dark as a mouse-hole, and with doors opening off from it here and there. At the end of the hall was a room that must have been the kitchen. It was very bare and lonely now, and there was a fireplace at one end with a streak of light shining down through the chimney.
While Teddy was standing by the chimney, he heard a rustling and stirring about overhead; one of the little owls clicked its beak in its sleep, and he heard a sleepy, whining voice: “Now just you stop scrouging me. Screecher is scrouging me!”
Then he heard the Mother Owl: “Hus-s-s-h! Hus-s-s-h! Go to sleep; it’s broad daylight yet.” After that all was still again.
“I wish,” thought Teddy to himself, “that I could do something to make the owls go away.” Then he began to giggle to himself, and put both hands over his mouth so that the owls up above wouldn’t hear him.
He tiptoed back to the door in the knot-hole, and looked down at a bush with long thorns on it, that grew close by. “I’ll do it,” he said to himself; “I’ll break off the thorns and put them in the nest, so that the owls just can’t stay there.” In a moment he was down on the bush and tugging at a tough thorn.
As soon as it broke off, he lifted it on his shoulder and clambered up the rough bark of the tree to the great black hole where the owls lived. When he looked down into it, there they were in the nest, fluffy and gray, and fast asleep. Very quietly he slipped down, and set the thorn in the side of the nest, with the point sticking out. After that, he softly clambered out again.
Up and down, up and down the tree he climbed again and again, carrying thorns and quietly setting them in the nest, and as he went up and down he kept whispering to himself: “I’m a gamblesome elf; oh, yes, indeed I am a gamblesome elf.”
After he thought he had put enough in the nest, he went into old Granddaddy Thistletop’s kitchen, and, crouching down by the fireplace, he listened. It was getting to be twilight now, and the owls were beginning to stir. Presently he heard a voice cry out: “Ouch! Flipperty is sticking his toes into me.”
“No I ain’t, neither,” said another voice. “It’s Pinny-winny. There, she’s doing it to me, too. Now just you stop.”
“’Tain’t me,” cried a little squeaky voice; “it’s Screecher hisself. Ow! Ow! I’m going to tell,” and she began to cry.
“You naughty little owls,” cried the Mother Owl’s voice, “what do you mean by digging your little sister?”
“I didn’t,” cried Screecher and Flipperty, together. “Ouch! Ouch! There’s something sharp in the nest.”
“My dear,” said old Father Owl’s voice from the branch outside, “can’t you keep those children quiet?”
“Quiet indeed!” cried old Mother Owl. “Here is the nest all set full of thorns, and you expect them to be quiet. No wonder the poor children make a noise. Just you come here and help me get the thorns out.”
“Thorns!” cried Father Owl. “How did they get in there?”
“That’s more than I can tell,” said the Mother Owl. “Perhaps it’s old Granddaddy Thistletop’s doings. I thought those fairies had gone away, but they must be down there still. I’ll just fly down and see, and if they are, I’ll make them sorry enough.”
With that, down flew the Mother Owl, and putting one big yellow eye at the kitchen window, she looked in. “Who-o-o! you fairies,” she cried, “are you in there still?”
At first, her eye looked so very big and yellow that Teddy was frightened. Then he remembered that he was a gamblesome elf, so he made a face at her, and began to hop up and down and twirl about on his toes, singing:
“I won’t go away! I won’t go away!
I’ll stay all night, and I’ll stay all day.
Oh, my cap and toes! I’m a gamblesome elf.
Old owl, you had better look out for yourself.”
The old owl looked in for a moment, and then without a word she flew back to her nest as fast as she could. Teddy ran over to the chimney and listened. He heard the old owl brush into the hollow above, and then he heard her saying in a frightened voice: “Husband, husband, what do you think! A gamblesome elf has come to live in old Granddaddy Thistletop’s house.”
“Oh, my tail-feathers!” cried old Father Owl aghast. “This is bad business; we’ll be having trouble and mischief all the time now. It would have been better if we had let old Thistletop stay. What shall we do?”
“Do! do!” cried old Mother Owl in an exasperated voice; “what is there to do, I should like to know, but to get the children away? I wouldn’t keep them in the same tree with that gamblesome elf —no, not a night longer —for all the mice you could offer me.”
“But how can we get them away?” asked old Father Owl. “They can’t fly.”
“No, we can’t fly!” cried all the little owls. “Oh, what shall we do? Ow! Ow!”
“Can’t fly! They’ve got to fly,” said Mother Owl, “and you and I must help them. Back to the old tree we go this very night.”
After that there was a great to-do up in the hollow. Teddy watched it all lying on his stomach in the door of the knot-hole, for it was moonlight by this time and almost as bright as day.
The little owls got up on the edge of the hollow and there they sat, teetering and flapping and afraid to fly. Their mother grew crosser and crosser, and at last she got back of them and gave them a push, and then down they went, fluttering and tumbling and bumping into the tree-trunks.
The Father Owl sailed about from branch to branch, calling, “Who-o-o-o! Who-o-o! Come on! Spread your wings and go like this. Who-o-o-o!” and then he would sail on to another bush; but the Mother Owl flew down beside them and showed them how to spread their wings, and pushed them with her beak, and gradually the fluttered farther and farther into the darkling woods, their cries growing fainter and then dying away until all Teddy could hear was the Father Owl’s voice, very faint and far away. “Who-o-o! Who-o-o!” Then it too died away, and the woods were still.
After a while the moon set and Teddy began to feel very sleepy.
Then a little breeze sprang up; the light grew clearer and the east was red, and at last the sun peeped over the top of the hill opposite.
As the first beam struck old Granddaddy Thistletop’s tree, Teddy started to his knees, gazing out down the hill-slope. There were the four black-and-yellow butterflies flying directly toward the tree as fast as their wings could carry them, and on the two foremost ones were old Granddaddy Thistletop himself and the beautiful Rosine.
They drew rein at the knot-hole, and the old fairy, skipping from his butterfly and never pausing to fasten it, tottered straight to Teddy and threw his arms about his neck. “Our preserver!” he cried. “And to think I should have called you a gamblesome elf! But never mind; I will make it up to you.”
Suddenly he turned and caught the blushing Rosine by the hand. “Here!” he cried; “she is yours, and you shall live with us, and learn to turn your toes up, and we will all be happy together.”
“But —but —” cried Teddy, starting back, “don’t you know? I’m not an elf at all. I’m—”
“Well, well! Here we are back again,” said the Counterpane Fairy, “and stiff enough I feel after all that journeying.”
“Oh! wasn’t it funny?” said Teddy, and his knees shook with laughter. “They really thought I was a gamblesome elf.”
“Take care!” cried the fairy. “There you are shaking your knees again. I think, my dear, that if you were to lower them very, very carefully, the hill would not be quite so steep.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll be careful,” said Teddy, beginning very slowly to slide his feet down in the bed. Suddenly, the door-knob turned, and Teddy gave a start; —quick as a flash the Counterpane Fairy had disappeared.
His mother was coming in carrying his breakfast and a little vase of violets on a tray.
“Why, my darling, what a bright, happy face!” she said. “I think my little boy must be feeling better this morning.”
