Mopsa the Fairy Part 5

They were full of splendid things,--clocks and musical boxes, strange china ornaments, embroidered slippers, red caps, and many kinds of splendid silks and small carpets. In other booths were swords and dirks, glittering with jewels; and the chatter of the people when they talked together was not in a language that Jack could understand.

Some of the booths were square, and evidently made of common canvas, for when you went into them, and the sun shone, you could distinctly see the threads.

But scattered a little farther on in groups were some round tents, which were far more curious. They were open on all sides, and consisted only of a thick canopy overhead, which was supported by one beautiful round pillar in the middle.

Outside the canopy was white or brownish; but when Jack stood under these tents, he saw that they were lined with splendid flutings of brown or pink silk: what looked like silk, at least, for it was impossible to be sure whether these were real tents or gigantic mushrooms.

They varied in size, also, as mushrooms do, and in shape: some were large enough for twenty people to stand under them, and had flat tops with a brown lining; others had dome-shaped roofs; these were lined with pink, and would only shelter six or seven.

The people who sold in these tents were as strange as their neighbors; each had a little high cap on his head, in shape just like a beehive, and it was made of straw, and had a little hole in front. In fact, Jack very soon saw bees flying in and out, and it was evident that these people had their honey made on the premises. They were chiefly selling country produce. They had cheeses so large as to reach to their waists, and the women trundled them along as boys do their hoops. They sold a great many kinds of seed, too, in wooden bowls, and cakes and good things to eat, such as gilt gingerbread. Jack bought some of this, and found it very nice indeed. But when he took out his money to pay for it, the little man looked rather strangely at it, and turned it over with an air of disgust. Then Jack saw him hand it to his wife, who also seemed to dislike it; and presently Jack observed that they followed him about, first on one side, then on the other.

At last, the little woman slipped her hand into his pocket, and Jack, putting his hand in directly, found his sixpence had been returned.

"Why, you've given me back my money!" he said.

The little woman put her hands behind her. "I do not like it," she said; "it's dirty; at least, it's not new."

"No, it's not new," said Jack, a good deal surprised, "but it is a good sixpence."

"The bees don't like it," continued the little woman. "They like things to be neat and new, and that sixpence is bent."

"What shall I give you then?" said Jack.

The good little woman laughed and blushed. "This young gentleman has a beautiful whistle round his neck," she observed, politely, but did not ask for it.

Jack had a dog-whistle, so he took it off and gave it to her.

"Thank you for the bees," she said. "They love to be called home when we've collected flowers for them."

So she made a pretty little courtesy, and went away to her customers.

There were some very strange creatures also, about the same height as Jack, who had no tents, and seemed there to buy, not to sell. Yet they looked poorer than the other folks, and they were also very cross and discontented; nothing pleased them. Their clothes were made of moss, and their mantles of feathers; and they talked in a queer whistling tone of voice, and carried their skinny little children on their backs and on their shoulders.

They were treated with great respect by the people in the tents; and when Jack asked his friend to whom he had given the whistle what they were, and where they got so much money as they had, she replied that they lived over the hills, and were afraid to come in their best clothes. They were rich and powerful at home, and they came shabbily dressed, and behaved humbly, lest their enemies should envy them. It was very dangerous, she said, to fairies to be envied.

Jack wanted to listen to their strange whistling talk, but he could not for the noise and cheerful chattering of the brown folks, and more still for the screaming and talking of parrots.

Among the goods were hundreds of splendid gilt cages, which were hung by long gold chains from the trees. Each cage contained a parrot and his mate, and they all seemed to be very unhappy indeed.

The parrots could talk, and they kept screaming to the discontented women to buy things for them, and trying very hard to attract attention.

One old parrot made himself quite conspicuous by these efforts. He flung himself against the wires of his cage, he squalled, he screamed, he knocked the floor with his beak, till Jack and one of the customers came running up to see what was the matter.

"What do you make such a fuss for?" cried the discontented woman.

"You've set your cage swinging with knocking yourself about; and what good does that do? I cannot break the spell and open it for you."

"I know that," answered the parrot, sobbing; "but it hurts my feelings so that you should take no notice of me now that I have come down in the world."

"Yes," said the parrot's mate, "it hurts our feelings."

"I haven't forgotten you," answered the woman, more crossly than ever; "I was buying a measure of maize for you when you began to make such a noise."

Jack thought this was the queerest conversation he had ever heard in his life; and he was still more surprised when the bird answered,--

"I would much rather you would buy me a pocket-handkerchief. Here we are, shut up, without a chance of getting out, and with n.o.body to pity us; and we can't even have the comfort of crying, because we've got nothing to wipe our eyes with."

"But at least," replied the woman, "you CAN cry now if you please, and when you had your other face you could not."

"Buy me a handkerchief," sobbed the parrot.

"I can't afford both," whined the cross woman, "and I've paid now for the maize." So saying, she went back to the tent to fetch her present to the parrots; and as their cage was still swinging Jack put out his hand to steady it for them, and the instant he did so they became perfectly silent, and all the other parrots on that tree, who had been flinging themselves about in their cages, left off screaming, and became silent too.

The old parrot looked very cunning. His cage hung by such a long gold chain that it was just on a level with Jack's face, and so many odd things had happened that day that it did not seem more odd than usual to hear him say, in a tone of great astonishment,--

"It's a BOY, if ever there was one!"

"Yes," said Jack; "I'm a boy."

"You won't go yet, will you?" said the parrot.

"No, don't," said a great many other parrots. Jack agreed to stay a little while, upon which they all thanked him.

"I had no notion you were a boy till you touched my cage," said the old parrot.

Jack did not know how this could have told him, so he only answered, "Indeed!"

"I'm a fairy," observed the parrot, in a confidential tone. "We are imprisoned here by our enemies the gypsies."

"So we are," answered a chorus of other parrots.

"I'm sorry for that," replied Jack. "I'm friends with the fairies."

"Don't tell," said the parrot, drawing a film over his eyes, and pretending to be asleep. At that moment his friend in the moss petticoat and feather cloak came up with a little measure of maize, and poured it into the cage.

"Here, neighbor," she said; "I must say good-by now, for the gypsy is coming this way, and I want to buy some of her goods."

"Well, thank you," answered the parrot, sobbing again; "but I could have wished it had been a pocket-handkerchief."

"I'll lend you my handkerchief," said Jack. "Here!" And he drew it out, and pushed it between the wires.

The parrot and his wife were in a great hurry to get Jack's handkerchief. They pulled it in very hastily; but instead of using it they rolled it up into a ball, and the parrot-wife tucked it under her wing.

"It makes me tremble all over," said she, "to think of such good luck."

"I say," observed the parrot to Jack, "I know all about it now. You've got some of my people in your pockets,--not of my own tribe, but fairies."

By this Jack was sure that the parrot really was a fairy himself, and he listened to what he had to say the more attentively.