The Counterpane Fairy Part 14

When he awoke again he was alone; it was quite dark outside, but mamma had set a lamp behind the screen. By its dim light Teddy saw the Counterpane Fairy's brown hood appearing above the hill, and he heard her sighing to herself: "Oh dear! oh dear!"

"Oh, Mrs. Fairy!" cried the little boy, almost before she had reached the top of the hill, "I'm so glad you've come, for I don't know when mamma will be here. Won't you show me a story?"

"In a minute! in a minute!" said the fairy. "As soon as I can catch my breath."

Teddy was so afraid that mamma would come in that he could hardly wait, and when the Counterpane Fairy told him that she was ready and that he might choose a square, he made haste and pointed out a silvery gray one.

Then the fairy began to count. "FORTY-NINE!" she cried.

Teddy was walking down a long, smooth, gray road. There was a silvery mist all about him, so that it was almost as though he were walking through the sky, and the road seemed to begin and end in grayness.

He knew that somewhere behind him lay his home, and that in front was the place where he was going, but he did not know what that place was.

At last he reached the edge of a wide gray lake as smooth and as shining as gla.s.s. Beside him on the beach a little gray bird was crouching.

"Peet-weet! peet-weet!" cried the little gray bird.

It was so close to Teddy's feet that it seemed to him that with a single movement he could stoop and catch it. Very softly he reached out his hand and the little bird did not stir. "Peet-weet! peet-weet!" it cried.

Suddenly with a quick movement he clutched it. For a moment he thought that he felt it in his fingers, all feathery and soft and warm, and then the voice of the Counterpane Fairy cried, "Take care! you're rumpling my cloak!"

Teddy dropped the bird as though it had burned him, and there it was not a bird at all, but the Counterpane Fairy, who stood smoothing down her cloak and frowning. "Oh! I didn't know that was you; I thought it was a bird," cried Teddy.

"A bird!" cried the fairy. "Do I look like a bird?"

Teddy thought that she did, for her nose was long and thin, and her eyes were bright like those of a sparrow, but he did not like to say so. All he said was, "I wonder why I came here?" for now he knew that this was the place that he had been coming to.

"I suppose you came to see the dreams go by," said the Counterpane Fairy. "I often come for that myself."

"The dreams go by!" said Teddy. "I don't know what you mean."

"Do you see that castle over yonder?" asked the fairy, pointing out across the lake. Teddy looked as hard as he could, and after a while he thought he did see the shadowy roofs and turrets of a great gray castle through the mist.

"I think I do," he said.

"Well," said the fairy, "that is where the dreams live, and every evening they go sailing past here, on their way to the people who are asleep, and I generally come down to see them go by. Look! look! There goes one now."

A little boat, as pale and light as a bubble, was gliding through the mist; in it was seated a gray figure, and as it pa.s.sed the island it turned its face toward them and waved a shadowy hand. Presently two more boats slid silently by, and then another. "Oh, I know that dream!" cried Teddy; "I dreamed that dream once myself."

Now there was a little pause, and then the dreams began to go past so fast that Teddy lost count of them.

At last one of the boats gilded out of the line of the rest, and over toward where Teddy was standing, running up smoothly onto the gray beach, and out of it hopped a queer, ugly little dream, with pop eyes and big hands and feet. As soon as he found himself on sh.o.r.e he cut a caper and cracked his shadowy fingers.

"Who are you?" asked Teddy, curiously.

"Oh, I'm just a dream," said the little figure.

"Well, what are you coming here for?" asked Teddy; "I'm not asleep."

"I know you're not," said the dream, "and I'm not coming to you. I'm going to a little girl named Harriett."

"Oh, I know her!" cried Teddy. "She's my cousin. But why are you her dream? You're not pretty."

"I know I'm not pretty," answered the dream, "and that's why I'm going to her. She was to have had such a pretty dream to-night, but she ate a piece of plum-cake before she went to bed, so now I'm going to her instead of the other one."

"What was the other one like?" asked Teddy.

"There it is," said the dream, pointing toward the boat. And now Teddy saw that another gray figure was in it. As he looked, it slowly and sorrowfully stepped from the boat and came up the beach toward them. It was very beautiful, and in its hand it carried a great bunch of shining bubbles, fastened to a stick by parti-colored ribbons, just as Teddy had seen Italians carrying balloons, only these bubble-balloons were growing and shrinking and changing every moment, just as though they were alive.

As she came toward them the ugly dream frowned and shook his hands at her. "Go away! Go away!" he cried. "There's no use your following me around this way. You sha'n't be dreamed to-night."

"I think you might let me go into her dream with you," said the pretty dream, sorrowfully. "She didn't know she oughtn't to eat the plum-cake."

"Well, you sha'n't," said the ugly dream. "She ain't going to have any dream but me, and I'm going to look just as ugly as I can. I'm going to do this way," and the naughty little dream put his thumbs in the corners of his mouth, drawing it wide, and at the same time drew down the outside corners of his eyes with his forefingers, just as Teddy had seen the boys at school do sometimes. Then the dream hopped up into the air and cut a caper. "Ho, ho!" he cried, "won't it be fun? You can come along and see me frighten her, if you want to." This last he said to Teddy.

Teddy thought him a very naughty, ugly-tempered little dream, but still he went with him, wondering all the time how he could induce him to let the pretty dream go to Harriett, and as they walked up the road together the pretty dream still followed them, carrying her bunch of bubbles.

They went on and on, until they came to a place where the ground was rough, and broken up with a number of black holes. The ugly dream went from one to another of these, pausing, and laying his ear to their edges.

"What are you doing?" asked Teddy.

"Hush! can't you see I'm listening?" said the dream crossly.

At last, after pausing at one of them, he turned to Teddy and nodded his head. "This is it," he said; "this is where Harriett lives."

"Why, it isn't at all!" cried Teddy, indignantly. "My cousin Harriett doesn't live in a hole! She lives in a great big house with doors and windows."

"Well, anyway, this is her chimney," said the dream, "and it's the only way to get into her house from here. If you want to come, come; and if you don't want to, why, stay," and the dream sat down on the edge of the hole.

Teddy hesitated. "If I went down that way, I think I'd fall and hurt myself," he said at last.

"Pooh! No, you wouldn't if you took my hand," said the dream. "I always go this way, and it's as easy as anything."

So Teddy sat down on the edge of the hole, and grasped the dream's shadowy fingers in his. Then they pushed themselves off the edge, and down they went through the darkness.

Teddy felt so frightened for a minute that he quite lost his breath, but he held on tight to the dream's fingers, and soon they landed, as softly and lightly as a feather, right in the nursery of Aunt Paulina's house, and the pretty dream was still following them.

"And now begins the fun," whispered the dream.

The house was very still, for everyone was fast asleep. The moon shone in through the window, making the room bright, and beyond the open closet door Teddy could see the toys all arranged in order just as Harriett had left them, (for she was a tidy little girl), and Harriett herself was tucked into her little white bed in the room beyond.

Teddy felt so sorry to think of her having such an ugly dream that he stood still. "You won't frighten her very much, will you?" he asked.

"Yes, I shall!" said the ugly dream. "I'll frighten her just as much as ever I can; I'll make her cry."

"No, you mustn't," said Teddy, almost crying himself. "I won't let you."

"You can't help it," cried the dream, tauntingly.