The Real Fairy Folk

Ruth lay in the grass, under the old willow tree, watching a dainty little creature with a pale green body and four gauzy wings flashing with all the tints of the rainbow.

“A locust, indeed,” said the newcomer, and Ruth could see plainly that he was not pleased. “It does seem to me you should know better than that. Can’t you see I have a _sucking_...

“Sh!” said Ruth to the audience in general, for she wanted very much to hear what the ant had to say. The ant looked at her approvingly, and then said in a very solemn tone:

Ruth hesitated, hoping he would know what she meant to say. She was sure he could tell her a great many things, if only he would. He was so polite and nice; besides, he looked v...

“I am an American,” he went on, in a voice which all could hear. “A native of this great and glorious country, and I have a right to buzz, or make any noise I please. Those litt...

She throws a web upon the air and soon ’Tis caught and lifted by the willing breezes, Then, freed from trouble in her light balloon, Our spinner travels wheresoe’re she pleases....

“No, I am not a moonbeam,” was the answer, “_but I am the moon moth, the Luna_. I am a messenger for the night-blooming flowers, for only the long tongues of the moths may reach...

Something exciting was going on. Ruth could not tell just what it was at first. She could only watch and wonder. Then her eyes grew large and bright. Surely some fairy’s wand ha...

“It is the most beautiful we have been to yet,” she whispered to Belinda, “and I am sure it is going to be the most interesting. I couldn’t begin to count them.”

Mrs. Potato Bug did not return. A sister bug rose to speak when the meeting opened after dinner. There had been a sad tragedy in the potato field, she told them, and even at tha...

“To be sure I’ll come out,” answered a croaky voice, as Ruth, holding Belinda tightly, drew close to the edge of the brook. “How’s that?” and with a splash a big green and brown...

“Thou art welcome to the town, but why come here To bleed a fellow poet gaunt like thee? Alas! the little blood I have is dear, And thin will be the banquet drawn from me.” —_Br...

In a corner of the garden, where the lilacs grew tall and broad, Ruth was waiting for something to happen. She had a feeling, as she told Belinda, that the most interesting thin...

“Her very own tree,” as Ruth always called it, for, since she could climb at all, she had loved to sit among its drooping branches and hear the leaves whispering together the wo...