Won't that be nice?'
Lubin looked doubtful, and wagged his tail dissentingly, as much as
to say that his ideas of angel ministrations were a trifle different.
But there was no end to the string! How very, very curious! Dicky
wound and wound and crept and crept along, until he was thoroughly
tired but thoroughly determined to see it through; and Lubin,
meanwhile, had seized the first convenient moment, after the mention
of the harness, to retire to the camp.
At length, oh joy! the tired and torn little man, following carefully
the leading-string, issued from the scratching bushes into a clean,
beautiful, round place, with a great restful-looking stump in the
centre, and round its base a small forest of snowy toadstools. What
could be a lovelier surprise! Dicky clapped his hands in glee as he
looked at them, and thought of a little verse of poetry which Bell
had taught him:
'Some fairy umbrellas came up to-day
Under the elm-tree, just over the way,
And as we have had a shower of rain,
The reason they came is made very plain:
To-night is the woodland fairies' ball,
And drops from the elm-tree might on them fall,
So little umbrellas wait for them here,
And under their shelter they'll dance without fear.
Take care where you step, nor crush them, I pray,
For fear you will frighten the fairies away.'
'Oh!' thought Dicky, in a trance of delight, 'now I shall go to the
fairies' ball, and see 'em dance under the cunning little teenty
umberells; and wunt they be mad at home when nobuddy can't see 'em
but just only me! And then if that potry is a big whopper, like that
there uvver one--'laddin-lamp story of Bell's--I'll just pick evry
white toadstool for my papa's Sunday dinner, and she sha'n't never
see a singul fairy dance.
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