Part 3

Dodo didn’t know what to do; she couldn’t very well run after Spot, because just at that moment Mary called her.

“Be quick, Dodo; Mother wants you,” she said. So Dodo went into the drawing-room feeling very guilty, and soon afterwards Spot came in, licking his lips.

“Had he eaten the kitten?” his mistress thought, but she didn’t _dare_ say anything.

The next morning when Dodo came down to breakfast, she found all sorts of nice presents laid out beside her plate.

“They can’t be for me,” she said, but Mother kissed her and said:

“Yes, they are, my pet. You surely haven’t forgotten that it is your birthday? I am so sorry that I have no present for you, but yesterday I bought you a little white kitten and shut it up in the morning-room. Some one must have let it out, for we can’t find it anywhere.”

You can think how Dodo felt then. She grew redder and redder, and then she burst out crying. After that she did the best thing she could have done. She told Mother all about it, and Mother kissed and comforted her, and forgave her, but she made her promise to try and not be so curious or so disobedient again.

And before breakfast was over, what do you think happened? Dick, the gardener’s boy, brought in a lovely white Persian kitten, that he had found in the tool-house. Of course, it was Dodo’s, and it was the very sweetest and dearest kitten in the world.

Spot was inclined to be jealous of the new pet, and was very naughty at first, barking and snapping at it in a very rude manner; but in the end even _he_ couldn’t help liking the pretty little fluffy thing. Before a week had passed he and Snow became the very best of friends, and he wouldn’t have chased that kitten for the meatiest bone in a whole butcher’s shop.

_L. L. Weedon._

THE THREE WISHES.

THERE were once two little white rats who lived in a hutch with wide bars. They had plenty of soft hay to sleep in, and bread-and-milk at the proper times. But they were dull, for they never saw the world, and they had nothing to talk of in the long winter evenings. One winter day a Fairy knocked at their door.

“I am cold and hungry,” she said, “and Fairyland is a long way off; I can never get there in this snowy weather.”

“Come in,” said Mrs. Whiterat, and the Fairy crept in through the bars. Mr. Whiterat gave the Fairy some bread-and-milk, and Mrs. Whiterat sat close beside her in the hay—so that soon the Fairy felt quite warm and cheerful again. And she lodged with the white rats all the winter, and they were all three as happy as could be.

Then when spring came, and the daffydowndillies were waving their yellow heads in the sun, the Fairy said: “I must go home now. You have been very good to me. You may have three wishes.” And she waved her little wand and flew away.

Now, the white rats had often longed to be free, to run about under the haystacks, and bring up large lively families, like the brown farm rats. So now they said—

“Oh! I wish we were out of the hutch!” And in a minute they found themselves among the hayricks.

“Oh! how big and beautiful the world is,” they said.

And then a dreadful thing happened. A great brown rat jumped out at them.

“Get along with you!” it said. “We don’t want any toy-rats here.” And it showed its sharp teeth and looked so fierce that Mrs. Whiterat trembled to the end of her grey tail, as she cried out—

“Oh! I wish we were safe in the hutch!” And the same instant, there they were at home again.

And the third wish? Well, they haven’t made up their minds about that yet. It gives them something to talk about in the winter evenings!

_E. Nesbit._

THE FASHIONABLE FUR.

MR. and Mrs. Stoat lived with their children in a comfortable home. They were very well off—they always had plenty to eat, and their fur coats always fitted beautifully and were never shabby.

Every day, when Mrs. Stoat was busy with the house work, she used to send the children out for a walk, and one day, when the children were walking in the wood, they saw two ladies coming down the path.

The little Stoats hid in a hole in the mossy root of a tree, and as the ladies went by, one of them said: “I wonder what fur will be worn next winter?”

“They say,” answered the other lady, “that nothing will be worn except-—-”

But the little Stoats could not hear what fur it was that was to be worn next winter. They did not like to think of other people wearing fur, for fear their own fur coats should be taken from them. “Oh! how cold we should be without our coats!” they said, shivering; but then the most sensible Stoat said: “It can’t matter to us what big people wear! Our coats wouldn’t fit _them_, you know.”

But the smallest Stoat of all felt quite anxious to know what fur would be worn, because she was a vain little person, and felt it would be very sad if Stoat-fur coats were not the fashion.

So when she went home to dinner she asked Mrs. Stoat the question.

“Mother dear, you know everything. Do tell us what fur will be worn next winter.”

“Why, Stoat-fur, of course,” the Mother answered, laughing; “unless-—-” She stopped short and looked at Mr. Stoat, who nodded and then they both laughed, and everyone sat down to dinner. But that silly smallest Stoat of all couldn’t sleep for thinking of that “unless.” What could it mean but that perhaps some other fur would be worn? And then _unfashionable_! It was a dreadful thought. Before morning she had made up her mind to go out into the great world and find out what fur was to be worn next winter. So she said nothing to anybody, but she started off alone; and perhaps she would soon have seen how silly she was and have come running back again, but, alas! she was caught in a trap, and the keeper who caught her would have killed her, only his little daughter begged so hard that the keeper agreed to spare the little creature’s life. So the smallest Stoat of all was kept in a hutch.

And there she stayed for weeks and weeks; and when it grew very cold the hutch was put in the stable, so that she was always warm; but she longed to get home again.

“I don’t think I should care about not being in the fashion,” she said sadly to herself, “if only I could go back to my dear Mammy and the old home!”

Now, one day two ladies took refuge from a snowstorm in the keeper’s house, and as they passed the stable the smallest Stoat of all heard one of them say: “You see, I was right. Nothing is being worn but _ermine_!”

And the little person in the hutch recognised the voices of the two ladies she had seen in the wood. So now she had found out the great secret! And it so happened that the very next day someone left the door of her hutch open, and she slipped out very cautiously, lifting up her little head and turning it from side to side, and sniffing to make sure that there was no danger near.

Then she started to run across the snowy fields to her old home. But as she ran she heard feet behind her—and ran faster and faster—a little brown streak on the snow. And the feet came faster too. They were a dog’s feet—and she heard the dog’s quick breathing close behind her as she rushed into the old home, and knew she was safe. As soon as she had got over her fright enough to look about her, she received another shock; she was in the midst of a number of strangers all dressed in creamy white fur dresses who were only like her as to their neat black tails.

“I’m sure I beg your pardon,” she said; “I thought this was the house where my Father and Mother lived.”

“So it is,” cried the white furry people, laughing. “Don’t you know us?” And then she saw that these were really her own relations, only their dresses were new.

“We are wearing ermine now,” said Mrs. Stoat proudly.

“Oh, Mother, can’t I have an ermine dress too?” cried the youngest Stoat of all. “Nothing is being worn but ermine. I heard them say so.”

“Something else is being worn by _you_, at any rate,” said Mrs. Stoat sternly. “You’ve been living in some warm nasty place. If you’d stayed here in the cold like a good little Stoat, instead of running away from home, you would have had an ermine dress like everyone else.”

“Don’t you know, silly child,” said Mr. Stoat, “that we always get ermine coats in very cold winters? Then dogs can’t see us so well in the snow. It’s very cold still. If you try hard perhaps you can get an ermine coat like the rest of us.”

But the smallest Stoat of all never got her ermine coat, for the spring came quite soon, and there has not been a really hard winter since.

_E. Nesbit._

NELL’S SECRET.

NELL had disappeared, and no one could find her anywhere. Poor Baby cried till his pretty eyes were all swollen and red, for Nell was his favourite playmate, and he missed her dreadfully.

“Never mind, old man,” said Mother, kissing him. “She’ll come back again some day.” And so she did.

One day a little half-starved ragged-looking dog came creeping up to the nursery, and Baby uttered a shout of joy. “Mamma, Mamma,” he cried, “Nell’s come back.”

The good little dog licked Baby’s hands and face, and wagged her tail by way of saying, “How are you, darling Babs, after all this long time?”

But, when Mother set a dish of food before her, she gobbled it up in no time, and then, scarcely waiting to say “Thank you,” she ran out of the nursery, downstairs, and after that no one knew what had become of her, for she was lost again.

However, the next day she came back again, and the next, and the next, and one fine morning she trotted up to the nursery, dragging with her the sweetest little puppy you ever saw.

Poor doggie! she was very proud of her little son, but oh! so frightened lest any harm should come to him.

Mother picked up the fat little fellow and put him on a chair, and then lifted Baby up to look, and Nell jumped upon the chair beside her son, and looked piteously up into Mother’s face.

“All right, old dog,” said Mother; “I wouldn’t harm your baby for anything, because you are always so good to mine.” Nell understood in a moment what Mother had said, jumped down from the chair, and ran towards the door, whining and looking back.

Mother knew she was meant to follow; so she and Baby went with the little dog, who led them down the garden towards the stables, and then up into the hayloft, and there, behind a large truss of hay, they found four other dear little puppies, just like the one Nell had brought to the nursery.

They carried them into the house, and Baby was allowed to keep one, which he trained to become a very clever doggie, and the others were sent to the Home Farm.

And why do you think Nell had kept her secret so well? She had been afraid that someone would rob her of her darlings; so she had hidden them up until they were old enough to trot about nicely, and were so sweet and pretty that she was sure no one would have the heart to harm them.

_L. L. Weedon._

HIDE AND SEEK

HIDE-AND-SEEK is a jolly game when you play it out of doors and there are a good many of you; but when you have to play it indoors and there are only two of you, you have to make the dolls play too. Molly and I used to each be captain of a side; she had nine dolls and I had only seven; so our side had much more looking to do than hers.

One very snowy day, when we couldn’t play in the garden, we had tried all the games we could think of, and Molly was getting crosser and crosser because she could not draw Selina properly, when I said: “Let’s play hide-and-seek.” Molly said: “All right, only I don’t know where half my dolls are. You must lend me some of yours. I’ll have the talking one and the one that shuts its eyes.”

I didn’t like this very much, but I gave in. “And our side will hide first,” said Molly. I didn’t like that either, but I gave in again.

I said good-bye to my dear Rosalie and Selina, and handed them over to Molly; then I turned my pinafore over my head and waited while she hid them.

“Cuckoo! cuckoo!” cried Molly, as a signal that all were hidden.

I soon found Molly; she was behind the window curtain, and made it stick out, of course; and I soon found her dolls and my Selina. Molly had hidden her in the coal-scuttle, and though she had wrapped her in a piece of paper, I didn’t think it was quite nice of her; but I couldn’t find Rosalie, the squeaking doll, anywhere. I looked in Nurse’s work-basket, I looked in the doll’s house, I looked everywhere you could think of—_no_ Rosalie! Just then Molly had to go and have her dress “tried on.”

Hide-and-seek is no fun by yourself, but I couldn’t bear to think of Rosalie being hidden somewhere all alone, so I went on looking. It was beginning to get dark, and Nurse had gone down to her tea, and I felt very miserable and forsaken, when suddenly in the quiet Nursery I heard Rosalie’s well-known squeak. The dear doll, she was calling to me! The sound came from the chest-of-drawers. The drawers themselves we were forbidden to open, but I pulled out Nurse’s work-drawer, and there, lying on the cut-out flannel petticoats, was my precious Rosalie. What I had so often wished had come true, no doubt. Rosalie had squeaked by herself. If she could squeak she could talk, and what interesting talks we should have! I told Nurse all about it when she came up from her tea.

“Bless you, my lambie,” she said; “dollies don’t squeak without something to make them.”

She went to the work-drawer and pulled it open. Lying curled up at the back was pussy.

“It was the cat you heard,” said Nurse; “or perhaps pussy sat on the doll’s squeak.”

It was a dreadful blow, but after all, I don’t think I quite believed that pussy had anything to do with it; and for a long time I used to take Rosalie into quiet corners whilst Molly was busy making her dolls new dresses, and beg her to squeak just a little for me, so that no one else should hear; but she never did, so that perhaps Nurse _was_ right after all.

_E. Nesbit._

TWELFTH NIGHT FAIRY.

FAIRIES are all pretty, we know, but the Twelfth Night Fairy was really lovely. She wore a white frock and a wreath of pink roses. She had no shoes or stockings, and stood on the tip of one toe and waved the other foot in the air. Teddy thought she was lovely, and he felt hungry when he looked at her, although he had just eaten his supper of bread-and-butter and milk. How he wished he were grown up instead of being only five years old, so that he had to be sent to bed like a baby, instead of sitting up for Mother’s party!

“I could eat her every bit; she’s only sugar,” said Teddy regretfully.

“Never mind, old man,” said Mother; “you shall have a nice slice of the cake to-morrow.” So Teddy sighed deeply, mounted the nursery stairs, and was soon far away in Dreamland.

But the Fairy went to Dreamland too. Teddy met her as soon as he crossed the threshold, and she told him she had been running after him ever since he left the supper-room.

“I wanted to tell you that I’m not sugar,” she said. “I’m a real live Fairy. And, oh! please, _please_ don’t eat me! I heard your Mother say that she would give me to you, because you had been a good boy and went to bed without making a fuss.”

There were tears in the Fairy’s eyes, and she looked so piteously at Teddy that he felt inclined to cry too.

“I won’t eat you, dear little thing!” he said, kissing her. “If Mother gives you to me, I’ll keep you for ever and ever. But, oh dear! suppose someone else should eat you before morning?”

This was a dreadful idea, and the Fairy began to sob outright, so tender-hearted little Ted thought he would go at once and make his Mother promise that she would not let anyone touch the poor little pink-and-white Fairy.

It was not very far from Dreamland to the dining-room, and the little boy soon stood by his Mother’s side, with the bright light from the waxen candles shining upon his golden curls and lighting up his pretty blue eyes. The room was quite full of people, but Teddy, who was a shy boy generally, didn’t mind a bit. “Oh! Mother dear,” he cried earnestly, “_promise_ that no one shall eat the little Fairy.”

Mother picked him up and kissed him, and then someone put the Fairy—who had followed him downstairs—into his hand, and in a moment he was fast asleep.

When he awoke in the morning the first thing he saw was his little friend, smiling at him from the top of the Nursery chest-of-drawers.

Teddy _was_ so glad she was safe and sound, and he wouldn’t have eaten her for the world now, because, although she looked so sweet, he knew she was not made of sugar.

He grew very fond of her and carried on long one-sided conversations with her. She never answered him during the day, but at night she met him very often in Dreamland, and danced with him, and sang him the sweetest, quaintest songs, and Teddy says, when he’s a grown man, he’s going to marry the pink-and-white Fairy.

_L. L. Weedon._

THE PEN FAIRY

_THERE_ was once a Fairy who lived in the hollow part of a quill pen. It was a very pretty palace for a fairy, with half-transparent walls. And hers was a happy life. The only thing that troubled her was that the man who used the pen only wrote logic and grammar and really sensible things.

“Why can’t he write poetry and fairy stories?” she used to say. “Oh, what beautiful things this dull man could write if he only knew that there was a Fairy in his pen!”

So one day when the man who used the pen had gone to a dull lecture, she wrote on the blotting-paper:—“_There is a fairy in your pen!_” “And now,” she thought, “he will surely let me help him to write poetry and fairy stories.”

But the stupid man thought the children had written the words on his blotting-paper, so he sent them to bed, and the Fairy cried till the ink was quite pale from having so many tears mixed with it.

And the man, finding that his pen wrote worse and worse, threw it into his waste-paper basket. His housekeeper picked it out. “I’ll mend this pen,” she said, “and use it for my books.”

“Oh! now,” thought the Fairy, “someone really is going to write fairy stories and poetry with me.”

But the housekeeper only used the pen for adding up the baker’s and butcher’s bills, and the Fairy got very angry. So she left the quill pen and came to live with me. And I try to be kind to her, and never hurt her feelings by writing logic or grammar or anything really sensible.

_E. Nesbit._

THE LITTLE DANCING GIRL

THERE was once a little girl who was so fond of dancing that she never did anything else.

She danced whilst she took her breakfast, so that her nice bread-and-milk was spilt upon the ground; she danced on her way to school, and was late in consequence; she danced when she took her dinner, and dropped the soup down her pretty frock and spoilt it; and even when she was tucked up in bed at night, her little feet kept dancing up and down beneath the bed-clothes, and she dreamt that she was treading a minuet with the King of the Fairies.

Now, of course this was very wrong indeed of the little girl. It is all very well to dance at the proper time, but out of time and season, as this little girl danced, it is a very bad thing indeed.

Her mother reasoned with her, coaxed her, scolded her; but it was all of no use, for she danced the more.

The little girl’s mother was very poor, and there were ever so many little brothers and sisters who wanted taking care of, but she was too selfish to think of anyone but herself; sometimes her mother would ask her to take the baby and hush him to sleep, but she pouted and grumbled and made a terrible fuss. If she did take him up in her arms for a while, she kept dancing round the room with the poor sleepy little fellow, till she wakened him up, and then he would scream and cry, and would not be soothed till his mother took him again.

So you see, the foolish little girl was of no use to anyone.

One day when she was dancing to school as usual, she met an old woman upon the way. And because she stood in the pathway and the dancing maiden could not pass her easily, she danced across the old woman’s toes.

Now, it happened that the old woman was a fairy, and she was so angry and offended with the little girl that she determined to punish her.

“You shall have dancing enough to last you all the days of your life,” she said, and with a wave of her wand, she turned her into a chimney-cowl, which, as everyone knows, does nothing the livelong day but whirl round and round till it almost makes one giddy to watch it. And the next time you go out for a walk, you have only to look upwards to where the chimneys grow, and you may see for yourself the little dancing-girl, who was so rude as to tread upon the fairy’s toes, going whirl, whirl! the whole day long, whether she will or no.

And the moral of this story is—“Don’t dance out of time and season, and don’t tread upon old women’s toes, or there is no knowing but what you may be turned into a chimney-cowl also.”

_L. L. Weedon._

DOLLY’S VOYAGE.

IT’S a dreadful thing to be a doll, children are so inconsiderate. I myself have lost an arm and a leg through their rough handling, and once I trembled for the safety of my head. Master Johnny wanted to play at Mary Queen of Scots being executed.

I was quite relieved when Dolly said that Mary Queen of Scots had been very beautiful and that I could never be made to look like her; it was not flattering, perhaps, but it was safe.

They gave up that idea and then Johnny said they would go out and fly his parachute. I thought that now I should be left in peace for a short time, but no! Johnny caught me up, tied a string round my waist and fastened me to the end of the parachute, and then those two cruel children climbed up to the top of the garden wall and dropped me over.

It is not altogether unpleasant to sail through the air with a parachute, but the bump when you reach the ground is terrible. I think I must have fainted away, for I remember nothing more until I found myself lying on a bed of violets with a tiny little creature sitting beside me who asked me how I felt. The string which bound me to the parachute had broken and I was free again, but I felt very stiff and uncomfortable.

However, I managed to reply politely to the little elf’s question, and having explained how I came to be lying there, on the wrong side of the garden wall, I added that I trusted I should never have to go back again. “What!” cried the elf, “you would really be contented to remain here always?” I answered that I should, and he then ran off and consulted with a group of elves who had been watching us from a distance.

When he returned he told me that he and his companions had long been wanting a queen, and seeing that I was so much larger and handsomer than they, they had decided to offer me the crown.

Of course, I was obliged to hesitate for a short time—it isn’t good manners to appear too eager about anything—but I meant to accept in the end, and was just preparing a nice little speech, when I was grabbed—yes, _grabbed_ by a dirty little hand and thrown over the wall, where Dolly caught me. Of course it was Johnny—that boy always was the bane of my life, and it was like him to spoil all my prospects.

However, Dolly was so glad to have me back again that I was a little comforted, though I have never quite got over the shock of my voyage over the garden wall.

_L. L. Weedon._

THE LOVE MATCH.

YOU would never think, to see the Matches lying so quietly in their box in the daytime, that they really have rather a pleasant life, and very exciting adventures. But they do. Every night the Matches creep out of their box and hide it, and put on pretty paper frocks and coats, and go and dance with their friends. That is why you can hardly ever find a match-box in the dark, and if you do it is almost always an empty one.