Chapter 9

Chapter 91,665 wordsPublic domain

"We!" said the fairy, in a voice of astonishment.

"Yes, yes, I mean us. O, what shall we do? Let's cut his bowstring," said Ting-a-ling, in great excitement, and drawing his little sword. The green fairy, although polite, could not help laughing at this idea; but Ting-a-ling slipped softly to where the bow was lying, a little behind the Kyrofatalapynx, and commenced to cut away at it; but although the green fairy took the sword when he was tired, they could make but little impression on the stout grape-vine, nearly as thick as they were high.

"Let's nick the sword," said Ting-a-ling, "and then it will be a saw." And so, with a sharp little flint, they nicked the edge of it, and the edge of the green fairy's knife (for he had no sword), and as they commenced to saw away as hard as they could at the grape-vine, they heard the Kyrofatalapynx muttering, "Only three hundred and seven more rubs, and then--twang, twang, twang!"

They worked like little heroes now; and as the fairy's sword was of the sharpest steel, they cut a good way into the vine; but just when they were nearly tired out, they heard the words,--"Ninety-three more rubs, and--twang, twang, twang!"

"O, let's saw, let's saw," cried Ting-a-ling (and it's a wonder the Kyrofatalapynx did not hear him), and they worked as hard as they did at first.

"Six more rubs, and--twang, twang, twang!" cried the Kyrofatalapynx, and the two little fairies fell down exhausted and disheartened. The vine was cut but little more than half through.

Up rose the mighty creature; and with his bow and arrow in his hands, he pushed quietly through the wood. The two fairies jumped up in a few minutes, and hurried after him; and as he went very slowly, so as not to be perceived, they reached the edge of the wood just as he crashed out into the open field.

"O!!!" shouted all the people, and they pulled the rope with a terrible jerk. Up sprang the Giant, but there stood the Kyrofatalapynx, with his long iron arrow already fitted into his bow. "Ha, ha!" he cried, "I shall put it through you--twang!" And he drew his arrow to its very head, and all the people fell down on their faces, and even Tur-il-i-ra turned a little pale. But snap! went the bowstring, and down fell the arrow! Then up rushed the Giant, and with one crushing blow of his rock-knobbed club, he laid the Kyrofatalapynx stone-dead!

The King, and the Queen, and the princesses, and all the people, jumped up, and in their wild joy they would have kissed the clothes off the good Giant, had he been willing to wait.

"All right!" he cried; "I must be off. I've a friend at home waiting for me. No thanks. You can stuff him now. Good-by!"

And away he went, and poor little Ting-a-ling was left behind!

When he saw the Giant walking away like a steam-engine on stilts, Ting-a-ling began to cry.

"Did you come with him?" said the green fairy. "Well, he's gone, and you can live with me now."

But Ting-a-ling was so overcome with sorrow, and begged so hard that his new friend should tell him of some way to follow the Giant, that the latter, after thinking a while, took him up into the King's pigeon-house. Warning him to be careful not to let any of the birds pick him up, the green fairy pointed out a gray pigeon to Ting-a-ling.

"Now," said he, "if we can get a string around the middle feather of his tail, we are all right."

"How so?" asked Ting-a-ling.

"Why, then you get on, and start him off, and by pulling the string you can make him go any way you wish; for you know he steers himself with his tail."

"Good!" cried Ting-a-ling, and they both looked for a string. When they had found one, they stole up to the pigeon, who was eating corn, and tied it fast to the middle feather of his tail, without his knowing anything about it.

"Now jump on and I'll start him off," said the green fairy; and Ting-a-ling ran up the pigeon's tail (which almost touched the floor), and took his seat on its back, holding tight on to its feathers. Then the green fairy ran around by the pigeon's head, and shouted in its ear, as it was pecking corn,--"_Hawk!_"

The bird just lifted up its head, and gave one shoot right out of the window of the pigeon-house. It went high up into the air; and Ting-a-ling, when he looked around and saw which way he ought to go, pulled his string this way and that way, and he found that he could steer the pigeon very well, and even make him keep up in the air, by pulling his tail-feather straight up. So on they went, and they got to the Giant's castle before the Giant himself. The pigeon flew over the castle, but Ting-a-ling steered him back again, and backward and forward, two or three times, until the bird thought he might as well stop there; and so he alighted on the roof, and off jumped Ting-a-ling. The first thing he saw there, after the pigeon had flown away again, was the green fairy!

"Why, where did you come from?" cried Ting-a-ling.

"O," said the other, laughing, and jumping up and down, "I thought I'd come too, and I hung on to his leg. It was nice, sitting up among his warm feathers, when his legs were curled up under him; a great deal better than being on top."

Ting-a-ling was very glad to have his friend with him, and he took him down-stairs. When the Giant got home, there they were, both in the middle of the table in the great hall, ready to welcome him. Tur-il-i-ra did not ask where the green fairy came from; but he was glad to see him, and he ordered supper to be laid on a table out on the lawn; for he was warm with his long walk. After supper, the two fairies came down to the Giant's end of the table, and he told them all that had happened, and how fortunate it was that the bowstring of the Kyrofatalapynx had broken.

"He did it!" cried the green fairy, pointing to Ting-a-ling; and then he told the whole story of their doings, and Ting-a-ling had to explain how he had gone with the Giant. Tur-il-i-ra listened until they had quite finished, and then exclaimed, "Well! I never saw such a little thing as you are, Ting-a-ling, for being in the right place at the right time. Never, never!" And he brought his hand down on the table with such an emphatic bang, that Ting-a-ling and the green fairy shot into the air like rifle-balls. Ting-a-ling went up, up, and up, until a high wind took him, and it blew him over a river, and a wood, and a high hill, and a wide plain; and then he fell down, down, down,--right into the middle of a soft powder puff-ball, with which a lady was powdering her neck.

"Mercy on us!" cried the lady, when she saw a little fairy in the puff-ball that she was just going to put up to her throat.

"It's only I, Nerralina," cried Ting-a-ling, who immediately recognized her; "wait a minute, until I get my breath."

Sure enough, it was Nerralina, the Princess's lady, who had been on a visit to her mother, in a distant country, and returning, had ordered her slaves to pitch her tent where she now was, about half a day's journey from the palace. Ting-a-ling told his story, and they had a nice time, talking of their past adventures; and in the morning Nerralina took Ting-a-ling with her to his home in the palace gardens.

As to the green fairy, he came down in a spider web. When he got out and stood on the grass, he said, "I shall not go back to that Giant. He is good, but he is too violent."

So he went to the river and got a nice chip, and he loaded it with honeysuckles and clover blossoms, and pushed it off into the stream; he then lay down on his back in the middle of his clover, and, sucking a honeysuckle, floated away in the moonlight, down to his home, where he arrived in two or three days, just as his honeysuckles were all gone.

When Tur-il-i-ra saw what he had done, he was in great trouble indeed. He ordered all his slaves to bring their little children, and he gathered up great handfuls of them, and spread them out all over the grass, so that they might look for the two lost fairies. But of course they could not find them; and just as the sun was setting, and the Giant was going to bed in despair, there came a horseman from Nerralina, telling him that Ting-a-ling was safe, and was going home with her. Early in the morning Tur-il-i-ra went to the palace gardens, and Ting-a-ling seeing him, they went down to the wood where they were when this story opened. Tur-il-i-ra wanted Ting-a-ling to go back and finish his visit.

"No," said the fairy. "I like you very much indeed, but I'm afraid I'm most too little for your house."

"Perhaps that's true," said the Giant; "and when you want to see them, there are so many good people here in the palace. I am sure I like common human beings very much, and I would wish to be with them always, if they were not so little."

"I like them too," said Ting-a-ling, "and would live with them all the time, if they were not so big."