Fairies I Have Met Part 7

"It's a lovely idea," he went on, chuckling. "This is what we'll do.

We'll wait till that silly old Spider goes to sleep or is busy, and then we'll rush down--quick as quick--and _steal his diamonds_!"

Then all the sun-fairies laughed and clapped their hands so loudly that the hole in the black cloud grew a good deal larger. They thought it was a grand idea.

They had not long to wait. Presently the Spider became rather tired of admiring his diamonds all by himself, so he set to work to send out invitations for a fly-party. He asked all the flies in the neighbourhood to come and see how nice his web looked when it was hung with diamonds.

As soon as the sun-fairies saw that he was busy they took each other's hands, and with a little run and a big jump they all burst through the hole in the black cloud. Then they flew softly down to the garden where the Big Spider lived.

"How nice and warm it is getting!" thought the Spider.

Presently he said to himself--

"My diamonds must be sparkling beautifully in this suns.h.i.+ne. I'll just take a look at them."

He turned round, expecting to see the pattern of his web delicately outlined in sparks of light. You will not be surprised to hear that he saw nothing of the kind. He saw his web, it is true, looking like filmy lace against the green of the gra.s.s; but there was not one single diamond hanging upon it!

Then the rage of the Big Spider was terrible to see.

He stamped with all his legs, and he rolled himself round and round, and he used all the most dreadful threats in spider-language.

"I don't care who the thief is," he said; "I shall think no more of eating him than if he were a fly!"

At that moment he heard the sweetest little laugh just behind him. This made him so angry that he spent a long time in looking for the person who laughed. While he was still searching the sun-fairies flew up again to the black clouds, carrying the diamonds with them.

"There," they said, as they threw the diamonds down on the cloud, "he won't find them there!"

They had forgotten for the moment that, hidden in the black cloud, there were a great number of rain-fairies. Now the rain-fairies never enjoy themselves so much as when they are annoying the sun-fairies: and in the same way there is nothing that pleases the sun-fairies so much as a good quarrel with the rain-fairies. This does not prevent them from being very friendly when they are not quarrelling.

The rain-fairies had seen all that had happened. They pretended to think that the sun-fairies had behaved very unkindly to the Big Spider.

"It's too bad," they said, "to steal the poor thing's diamonds. It's not fair. Let's throw them down to him."

Then a great fight began between the sun-fairies and the rain-fairies for the diamonds, and the fight lasted a long time, and all the time that it lasted the Big Spider was in a rage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WEB AND THE DIAMONDS AND THE BIG SPIDER HIMSELF ALL FELL TO THE GROUND]

At last the rain-fairies won the fight, and went off with the diamonds in their arms.

"Now we'll throw them to the Big Spider," they said, "and we'll see how glad he is when his web is hung with diamonds as it was before."

They forgot that the dew-fairies, when they had trimmed the web with the diamonds, had crept up softly and touched the strings with gentle fingers. But the rain-fairies are rather rough.

They flung out their little arms and threw the diamonds down out of the black cloud. Down dropped the diamonds, and down, and down, till they reached the garden where the Big Spider lived, and the web that the Big Spider had made. But instead of hanging on the web in rows, like little lighted lamps, they dropped into the middle of it with a crash and a dash and a splash, and broke it into a great many pieces, so that the web and the diamonds and the Big Spider himself all fell to the ground.

And by the time the Big Spider was standing on all his legs again the diamonds had disappeared into the gra.s.s.

The truth is that the dew-fairies had found them and had taken them home. I expect they will keep them till the Big Spider has made a new web.

_A LITTLE GIRL IN A BOOK_

Christabel was a little girl who read a great many books. She noticed that the girls and boys in the books were not altogether like the girls and boys who played with her in the Square and came to tea with her. The children in the books were wonderfully brave and clever; and when they were having their magnificent adventures they always did exactly the right thing at the right moment. They never had a dull minute, and they never said anything silly. The girls and boys who came to tea with Christabel were not like this, and Christabel knew that she herself was not like this. She never had any adventures, and she knew that even if she ever did have one she would not behave at all bravely or cleverly.

And she was often so dull that she drummed with her fingers on the window and said--

"What on earth shall I do?"

Now, Christabel had a Big Sister who wrote books.

One day she said to her Big Sister--

"How I do wish I were a little girl in a book! Nothing ever happens to little girls in real life. It is so dull!"

The Big Sister went on writing, and said nothing.

"It's no use talking to her," thought Christabel, "because she always goes on writing."

A few days after this Christabel began to feel rather strange. A kind of stiffness came into all her limbs, so that they would not do what she told them. And sometimes she found herself saying things that she had not intended to say at all. This puzzled her and made her very uncomfortable. She wondered if other people noticed that there was something wrong with her. She even thought of speaking to her Big Sister about it, but the Big Sister was so busy writing that it was no use to try and make her hear.

This went on for some time. Christabel grew stiffer and stiffer, and more and more uncomfortable; and her Big Sister went on writing busily.

At last one day Christabel understood what had happened. She woke up and found that everything round her had changed; the people and the place and everything. She was frightened at first, and then the truth suddenly flashed into her mind. A most remarkable and unusual and unexpected thing had happened: her Big Sister had put her into a book!

"So I really am a little girl in a book, after all!" she said to herself.

She tried to say it aloud, but she found she couldn't. The words were not in the book, you see.

"Now I am going to enjoy myself," she thought, "and never be dull any more."

There was not much chance of her being dull, for the book was full of adventures and narrow escapes, and other delightful things.

First she was captured by pirates; and after having a terrible time with them she was saved from them by a s.h.i.+pwreck. The s.h.i.+pwreck did not do her much good, however, for she at once fell into the hands of the most dreadful savages. So you will understand that she was not at all likely to be dull.

Christabel was delighted to find that she behaved, like other little girls in books, with the greatest courage and cleverness. Whenever an adventure was going on she always managed to get out of every difficulty, and she saved the lives of several of the other people in the book by her bravery. The strange thing was that she found it quite easy to be brave; while she was a little girl in real life she had not found it easy at all.

"I do hope the book has a happy ending," she thought sometimes.

She wished very much that she could peep into the end of the book, as she used to do when she was a little girl in real life. Meantime every chapter was more exciting than the last. Of course Christabel did not know whether she would escape from the savages at all. Perhaps they were going to eat her. That would not be a happy ending to the book, she felt.

After a great many terrible dangers, she managed to escape; for a s.h.i.+p sailed into the bay at the right moment, and took her home to England.

This was the end of the book. The person who was reading it shut it up with a bang--and Christabel went to sleep.

By-and-by, some one else took up the book and began to read it. Then Christabel woke up and found herself at the beginning of the story.

After so many adventures she was rather tired, and did not feel inclined to begin them all over again. But that was just what she had to do.

Being captured by pirates is not nearly so exciting when you know you can only escape from them by a cold, wet s.h.i.+pwreck; and when you are s.h.i.+pwrecked you are not very anxious to scramble ash.o.r.e when you know there are a large number of fierce savages waiting for you!

"This is rather tiresome," thought Christabel.