Friendly Fairies Part 7

So the two little orphan children lived all the time with Sally Migrundy. And each morning when they tumbled, laughing and shouting, out of their little snow white beds, they found underneath a new present. So each morning they had a new toy to play with, for the magic beds knew just what a child would like most each day.

Sally Migrundy was very, very glad the children had come to live with her, so she wrote more notes and sent them down the singing stream, and more and more children came until Sally Migrundy's house was very, very large inside, but still the same tiny little cottage on the outside. The singing and happy laughter of the children echoed through the whispering forest all day, and the ground about the cottage was filled with toys and playthings,--merry-go-rounds, sliding boards, sand piles, hundreds of sand toys, and play houses filled with beautiful dolls and doll furniture.

There was a roller coaster which knew just when to stop and start so that none of the children could ever hurt themselves upon it, and a little play grocery, a little play candy store, and a little play ice cream parlor so that the children could go there at any time and get cookies and candy and ice cream whenever they wished. You may be sure it was a very happy place to live and the children made Sally Migrundy very happy. At first the creatures who lived in the whispering forest were surprised to hear the happy laughter and to see so many children playing about, but they soon grew accustomed to the children and came right up to the grocery and candy store and ice cream parlor to be fed.

Each year Sally Migrundy sends happy-hearted invitations floating down the stream and more orphan children come to live with her. However Sally Migrundy's tiny cottage is just the same tiny cottage on the outside.

But when once you crawl through the tiny door, you look upon rows and rows of little rooms, each having one or more little snow white beds in it.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

And, while Sally Migrundy remains a tiny little lady only two feet high, she has as much happiness inside as if she were as large as a great big mountain, for as you have probably also guessed, she is a fairy and can have as much room inside for happiness as the little magic cottage could have room inside for all the happy children.

One day the man who lived upon the hill where the spring bubbles up from the ground and makes the beginning of the singing stream said to his wife: "Mother, I will follow the stream and see where it leads to!" So he started down the stream and walked and walked and walked until the stream took him down through the whispering forest clear down to the sea.

Then he turned around and walked back up the stream from the ocean--up through the whispering forest until he came again to his home at the top of the hill.

"I followed the stream down through a great whispering forest, mother,"

he said, "until I came to the sea. Then I turned around and came back the same way. It was a beautiful trip and when I came to the center of the great whispering forest there was a clearing at the side of the tinkling, singing stream, and the lovely fish leaped from the crystal waters and showed me their wonderful coloring, and the clearing was filled with beautiful flowers and the music of birds. And it was so beautiful I stopped and watched and listened.

"It seemed as if hundreds of children were playing around me, and although I could not hear them yet it seemed to me that I felt they were shouting and laughing at their play!"

"How wonderful it must have been!" said his wife.

"It was indeed very wonderful, mother. And when I returned I again stopped at the same place and sat and listened to the singing of the waters and the birds, and I saw the wild creatures come down into the clearing and act as if they were being fed, and all the time I seemed to feel the laughter and happy shouting of children at play. And a most delightful feeling of contentment and happiness came over me as if I sat within the borders of Fairyland!

"Then as I stooped to drink of the tinkling waters before I started on my way home, I saw, tied to a flower growing in the water, the tiny little bottle with the note inside which I had floated off a long time ago, so I brought it home with me!"

And from his knapsack the man took the tiny bottle and placed it on the table before his wife.

"I wish we knew just who tied the bottle to the flower!" said the wife as she picked the bottle up to look at it. And because the bottle had been used by Sally Migrundy, the two good people suddenly knew all about Sally Migrundy, the magic little cottage, and the happy children who lived there.

Every year the man takes his wife, and together they walk down the tinkling stream until they came to the exact center of the great whispering forest; there they sit for hours at a time, feeling the happiness that overflows from the hearts of Sally Migrundy and the children. And while the good couple have not been able to see the children or Sally Migrundy, or even the tiny magic cottage, they know they are all there, for at times they can hear the laughter and once in a while they feel the touch of a tiny hand. And when they return to their home upon the hill they find they have received enough happiness at the clearing beside the tinkling, singing water to last them for a whole year.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

HOW JOHNNY CRICKET SAW SANTA CLAUS

When the first frost came and coated the leaves with its film of sparkles, Mamma Cricket, Papa Cricket, Johnny Cricket and Grandpa Cricket decided it was time they moved into their winter home.

Papa and Mamma and Grandpa Cricket carried all the heavy Cricket furniture, while Johnny Cricket carried the lighter things, such as the family portraits, looking gla.s.ses, knives and forks and spoons, and his own little violin.

Aunt Katy Didd wheeled Johnny's little sister Teeny in the Cricket baby buggy and helped Mamma Cricket lay the rugs and wash the stone-work, for you see the Cricket winter home was in the chimney of a big old-fas.h.i.+oned house and the walls were very dusty, and everything was topsy-turvy.

But Mamma Cricket and Aunt Katy Didd soon had everything in tip-top order, and the winter home was just as clean and neat as the summer home out under the rose bush had been.

There the Cricket family lived happily and every thing was just as cozy as any little bug would care to have; on cold nights the people who owned the great big old fas.h.i.+oned house always made a fire in the fireplace, so the walls of the Cricket's winter home were nice and warm, and little Teeny Cricket could play on the floor in her bare feet without fear of catching cold and getting the Cricket croup.

There was one crack in the walls of the Crickets' winter home which opened right into the fireplace, so the light from the fire always lit up the Crickets' living room. Papa Cricket could read the Bugville News while Johnny Cricket fiddled all the latest popular Bug Songs and Mamma Cricket rocked and sang to little Teeny Cricket.

One night, though, the people who owned the great big old fas.h.i.+oned house did not have a fire in the fireplace, and little Teeny Cricket was bundled up in warm covers and rocked to sleep, and all the Cricket family went to bed in the dark.

Johnny Cricket had just dozed into dreamland when he was awakened by something pounding ... ever so loudly ... and he slipped out of bed and into his two little red topped boots and felt his way to the crack in the living room wall.

Johnny heard loud voices and merry peals of laughter, so he crawled through the crack and looked out into the fireplace.

There in front of the fireplace he saw four pink feet and two laughing faces way above, while just a couple of Cricket-hops from Johnny's nose was a great big man. Johnny could not see what the man was pounding, but he made an awful loud noise.

Finally the pounding ceased and the man leaned over and kissed the owners of the pink feet. Then there were a few more squeals of laughter, and the four pink feet pitter-patted across the floor and Johnny could see the owners hop into a snow-white bed.

Then Johnny saw the man walk to the lamp and turn the light down low, and leave the great big room.

Johnny Cricket jumped out of the crack into the fireplace and ran out into the great big room so that he might see what the man had pounded.

The light from the lamp was too dim for him to make out the objects hanging from the mantel above the fireplace. All he could see were four long black things, so Johnny Cricket climbed up the bricks at the side of the fireplace until he came to the mantel shelf, then he ran along the shelf and looked over. The black things were stockings.

Johnny began to wish that he had stopped to put on his stockings, for he was in his bare feet. He had removed his little red topped boots when he decided to climb up the side of the fireplace and now his feet were cold.

So Johnny started to climb over the mantel shelf and down the side of the fireplace when there came a puff of wind down the chimney which made the stockings swing away out into the room, and snowflakes fluttered clear across the room.

There was a tiny tinkle from a bell and, just as Johnny hopped behind the clock, he saw a boot stick out of the fireplace.

Then Johnny Cricket's little bug heart went pitty-pat, and sounded as if it would run a race with the ticking of the clock.

From his hiding place, Johnny Cricket heard one or two chuckles, and something rattle. Johnny crept along the edge of the clock and holding the two feelers over his back looked from his hiding place....

At first all he could see were two hands filling the stockings with rattly things, but when the hands went down below the mantel for more rattly things, Johnny Cricket saw a big round smiling face all fringed with snow-white whiskers.

Johnny drew back into the shadow of the clock, and stayed there until the rattling had ceased and all had grown quiet, then he slipped from behind the clock and climbed down the side of the fireplace as fast as he could. Johnny Cricket was too cold to stop and put on his little red boots, but scrambled through the crack in the fireplace and hopped into bed. In the morning Mamma Cricket had a hard time getting Johnny Cricket out of bed. He yawned and stretched, put on one stocking, rubbed his eyes, yawned, put on another stocking and yawned again. Johnny was still very sleepy and could hardly keep his eyes open as he reached for his little red-topped boots.

Johnny's toe struck something hard, he yawned, rubbed his eyes and looked into the boot. Yes, there was something in Johnny Cricket's boot!

He picked up the other boot; it, too, had something in it!

It was candy! With a loud cry for such a little Cricket, Johnny rushed to the kitchen and showed Mamma, then he told her of his adventure of the night before.

Mamma Cricket called Papa and they both had a laugh when Johnny told how startled he had been at the old man with the white whiskers who filled the stockings in front of the fireplace. "Why, Johnny!" said Mamma and Papa Cricket. "Don't you know? That was Santa Claus. We have watched him every Christmas in the last four years fill the stockings, and he saw your little red topped boots and filled them with candy, too. If you will crawl through the crack into the fireplace you will see the children of the people who own this big house playing with all the presents that Santa Claus left them!"

And, sure enough, it was so!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]