SUSIE AND THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
You can just imagine how excited Susie and her mamma and papa and Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the muskrat, were when Sammie got home and told about the bad fox who had been changed into a country village. Uncle Wiggily Longears was surprised, too. He said:
"My, it does seem to me that there are strange goings on in these woods. There never used to be any fairies here. I wonder where they come from?"
"Well, it's a good thing that fox has been changed into a town," spoke Papa Littletail. "If he hadn't been, I would have had him arrested for frightening you, Sammie. I know the policeman down at our corner, and I'm sure he would have arrested him for me. But it's all right now," and Sammie's papa sat back in his chair and read the paper, for he was tired that night from working in the turnip factory. You see, he changed from the carrot factory, and got a place sorting turnips. And sometimes he would bring little sweet ones home to the children.
One day Susie was hurrying back from the store with a loaf of bread, a yeast cake and three-and-a-half of granulated sugar, and she was sort of wondering if she would meet the blue fairy again when, just as she got opposite a place where some goldenrod grew, she heard a voice saying:
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear me! I shall never be able to reach it! Never, never, never!" Susie looked around, and what should she see but a nice, little old lady, trying to break off a stem of goldenrod.
"Oh, dear me suz-dud!" cried the old lady again, and then Susie saw that she was very little indeed, hardly larger than a ten-cent plate of ice cream after it's all melted. So she couldn't reach the goldenrod, she was so little.
"What is the matter?" asked Susie very politely. "Can I help you?"
"Thank you, my dear child," went on the little old lady. "If you would be so kind as to reach me down a stem of goldenrod, I would be very much obliged to you."
"What do you want with it?" asked Susie, wondering who the little old lady could possibly be.
"Why, I want it for a fairy wand," she answered. "I have lost mine."
"Are you a fairy, too?" asked the little rabbit girl, and she began to wonder what would happen next as she broke off a stem for the old lady.
"Indeed I am," replied the little old lady. "I am a fairy godmother. I have charge of all the other fairies, the blue fairy and the red fairy and the green fairy, and all the other colors, including the fairy prince, who used to be a mud turtle."
"But, if you are a fairy," asked Susie, "why couldn't you make that goldenrod come down to you, when you weren't tall enough to reach up to it?"
"Hush!" exclaimed the fairy godmother, for she really was one, as you shall see. "Hush, my dear child! It's a great secret. Don't tell any one," and she put her right hand over her mouth and her left hand over her ear, and held the goldenrod under her arm. "You see, I lost my magic wand," she went on, "and I couldn't do any more magic until I got a new one. Now I am all right, and to reward you you may come with me."
"But I have to get home with the bread and sugar and yeast cake," said Susie.
"No," spoke the fairy godmother, "you will not need to be in a hurry. Besides, what I will show you will happen in an instant, and you will get home in time after all."
So she waved the goldenrod in the air, and once more the silver trumpet sounded: "Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta-ra!" and, all of a sudden, Susie found herself lifted up, and there she and the fairy godmother were sailing right through the air on a big burdock leaf. At first Susie was afraid, but she soon got over her fright and enjoyed the ride.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"We are going to where the fairies live," answered the little old woman, but she seemed larger now, and the old dress she had worn had changed into a cloak of gold and silver with diamonds and rubies on it all over, like frost on a cold morning.
So pretty soon—oh, I guess in about as long as it would take to eat a peanut, or, maybe, two, if they didn't come to fairyland. At least that's what Susie thought it was, for there were fairies all about. The red fairy was there, and the green, and the blue one. And the blue fairy asked: "Have you your ring yet, Susie?" Then Susie said she had, but she didn't want to talk any more, for so many wonderful things were going on.
The fairies were skipping about, leaping here and there, some riding on the backs of birds and butterflies and bumblebees, and some running in and out of holes in the ground.
"What are they doing?" asked Susie, moving her long ears back and forth.
"They are doing kind things to the people of the earth," replied the fairy godmother, "and it keeps them busy, let me tell you." Then Susie saw fairies doing all sorts of magical tricks, such as making lemonade out of lemons, and things like that.
Then, all at once, just when one little fairy was making a hat out of some straw, the godmother said: "It is time for us to go now," so the burdock leaf came sailing through the air, and Susie got on. As they came near the woods where the goldenrod grew they saw a boy throwing a stone at a robin.
"Ah, I must stop that!" cried the fairy godmother, so she waved her new magic wand that Susie had helped her get, and, honestly, if that stone didn't turn right around in the air, and instead of hitting the bird, it flew back and hit that boy right on the end of his nose! Oh, how he cried, and, what is better, he never threw stones at birds again. I call that a pretty good trick, don't you? Well, the burdock leaf came to the ground, and Susie ran home, and she was just in time to help her mother set bread. To-morrow night's story is going to be about Uncle Wiggily and the fairy spectacles. That is, I think it is, but, if you like, you may turn over the page to make sure. But you are only allowed just one peep, only one, mind you.