The Counterpane Fairy Part 3

"It's all because of old Mrs. Owl," said the beetle. "She and old Father Owl used to live deep in the woods in a hollow tree, but one time they determined to move out to the edge of the hill, because the air was better, and what tree should they choose for their home but this very one where Granddaddy Thistletop has been living as long as I can remember. Then when the owls were all settled they began to complain.

They said that Granddaddy Thistletop and Rosine were so noisy all day that they couldn't sleep.

"After the little owls hatched out it was worse than ever, for the old mother said that every time Rosine cooked the dinner it made the little owls sneeze, and so the fairies must go."

"I wouldn't have gone," cried Teddy.

"Oh, yes you would," said the beetle. "The owls could have stopped up the doors and windows, or they could--well, they could have done almost anything, they're so big. You may go in and look at the house, if you want to. I have to go down the bush and see old Mrs. Ant. Good-bye! I'll see you again after a while."

When the beetle had gone, Teddy climbed up to the knot-hole and went in. There was a long entry as narrow and dark as a mouse-hole, and with doors opening off from it here and there. At the end of the hall was a room that must have been the kitchen. It was very bare and lonely now, and there was a fireplace at one end with a streak of light shining down through the chimney.

While Teddy was standing by the chimney, he heard a rustling and stirring about overhead; one of the little owls clicked its beak in its sleep, and he heard a sleepy, whining voice: "Now just you stop scrouging me. Screecher is scrouging me!"

Then he heard the Mother Owl: "Hus-s-s-h! Hus-s-s-h! Go to sleep; it's broad daylight yet." After that all was still again.

"I wish," thought Teddy to himself, "that I could do something to make the owls go away." Then he began to giggle to himself, and put both hands over his mouth so that the owls up above wouldn't hear him.

He tiptoed back to the door in the knot-hole, and looked down at a bush with long thorns on it, that grew close by. "I'll do it," he said to himself; "I'll break off the thorns and put them in the nest, so that the owls just can't stay there." In a moment he was down on the bush and tugging at a tough thorn.

As soon as it broke off, he lifted it on his shoulder and clambered up the rough bark of the tree to the great black hole where the owls lived.

When he looked down into it, there they were in the nest, fluffy and gray, and fast asleep. Very quietly he slipped down, and set the thorn in the side of the nest, with the point sticking out. After that, he softly clambered out again.

Up and down, up and down the tree he climbed again and again, carrying thorns and quietly setting them in the nest, and as he went up and down he kept whispering to himself: "I'm a gamblesome elf; oh, yes, indeed I am a gamblesome elf."

After he thought he had put enough in the nest, he went into old Granddaddy Thistletop's kitchen, and, crouching down by the fireplace, he listened. It was getting to be twilight now, and the owls were beginning to stir. Presently he heard a voice cry out: "Ouch! Flipperty is sticking his toes into me."

"No I ain't, neither," said another voice. "It's Pinny-winny. There, she's doing it to me, too. Now just you stop."

"'Tain't me," cried a little squeaky voice; "it's Screecher hisself. Ow!

Ow! I'm going to tell," and she began to cry.

"You naughty little owls," cried the Mother Owl's voice, "what do you mean by digging your little sister?"

"I didn't," cried Screecher and Flipperty, together. "Ouch! Ouch!

There's something sharp in the nest."

"My dear," said old Father Owl's voice from the branch outside, "can't you keep those children quiet?"

"Quiet indeed!" cried old Mother Owl. "Here is the nest all set full of thorns, and you expect them to be quiet. No wonder the poor children make a noise. Just you come here and help me get the thorns out."

"Thorns!" cried Father Owl. "How did they get in there?"

"That's more than I can tell," said the Mother Owl. "Perhaps it's old Granddaddy Thistletop's doings. I thought those fairies had gone away, but they must be down there still. I'll just fly down and see, and if they are, I'll make them sorry enough."

With that, down flew the Mother Owl, and putting one big yellow eye at the kitchen window, she looked in. "Who-o-o! you fairies," she cried, "are you in there still?"

At first, her eye looked so very big and yellow that Teddy was frightened. Then he remembered that he was a gamblesome elf, so he made a face at her, and began to hop up and down and twirl about on his toes, singing:

"I won't go away! I won't go away!

I'll stay all night, and I'll stay all day.

Oh, my cap and toes! I'm a gamblesome elf.

Old owl, you had better look out for yourself."

The old owl looked in for a moment, and then without a word she flew back to her nest as fast as she could. Teddy ran over to the chimney and listened. He heard the old owl brush into the hollow above, and then he heard her saying in a frightened voice: "Husband, husband, what do you think! A gamblesome elf has come to live in old Granddaddy Thistletop's house."

"Oh, my tail-feathers!" cried old Father Owl aghast. "This is bad business; we'll be having trouble and mischief all the time now. It would have been better if we had let old Thistletop stay. What shall we do?"

"Do! do!" cried old Mother Owl in an exasperated voice; "what is there to do, I should like to know, but to get the children away? I wouldn't keep them in the same tree with that gamblesome elf--no, not a night longer--for all the mice you could offer me."

"But how can we get them away?" asked old Father Owl. "They can't fly."

"No, we can't fly!" cried all the little owls. "Oh, what shall we do?

Ow! Ow!"

"Can't fly! They've got to fly," said Mother Owl, "and you and I must help them. Back to the old tree we go this very night."

After that there was a great to-do up in the hollow. Teddy watched it all lying on his stomach in the door of the knot-hole, for it was moonlight by this time and almost as bright as day.

The little owls got up on the edge of the hollow and there they sat, teetering and flapping and afraid to fly. Their mother grew crosser and crosser, and at last she got back of them and gave them a push, and then down they went, fluttering and tumbling and b.u.mping into the tree-trunks.

The Father Owl sailed about from branch to branch, calling, "Who-o-o-o!

Who-o-o! Come on! Spread your wings and go like this. Who-o-o-o!" and then he would sail on to another bush; but the Mother Owl flew down beside them and showed them how to spread their wings, and pushed them with her beak, and gradually the fluttered farther and farther into the darkling woods, their cries growing fainter and then dying away until all Teddy could hear was the Father Owl's voice, very faint and far away. "Who-o-o! Who-o-o!" Then it too died away, and the woods were still.

After a while the moon set and Teddy began to feel very sleepy.

Then a little breeze sprang up; the light grew clearer and the east was red, and at last the sun peeped over the top of the hill opposite.

As the first beam struck old Granddaddy Thistletop's tree, Teddy started to his knees, gazing out down the hill-slope. There were the four black-and-yellow b.u.t.terflies flying directly toward the tree as fast as their wings could carry them, and on the two foremost ones were old Granddaddy Thistletop himself and the beautiful Rosine.

They drew rein at the knot-hole, and the old fairy, skipping from his b.u.t.terfly and never pausing to fasten it, tottered straight to Teddy and threw his arms about his neck. "Our preserver!" he cried. "And to think I should have called you a gamblesome elf! But never mind; I will make it up to you."

Suddenly he turned and caught the blushing Rosine by the hand. "Here!"

he cried; "she is yours, and you shall live with us, and learn to turn your toes up, and we will all be happy together."

"But--but--" cried Teddy, starting back, "don't you know? I'm not an elf at all. I'm---"

"Well, well! Here we are back again," said the Counterpane Fairy, "and stiff enough I feel after all that journeying."

"Oh! wasn't it funny?" said Teddy, and his knees shook with laughter.

"They really thought I was a gamblesome elf."

"Take care!" cried the fairy. "There you are shaking your knees again. I think, my dear, that if you were to lower them very, very carefully, the hill would not be quite so steep."

"Yes, ma'am, I'll be careful," said Teddy, beginning very slowly to slide his feet down in the bed. Suddenly, the door-k.n.o.b turned, and Teddy gave a start;--quick as a flash the Counterpane Fairy had disappeared.

His mother was coming in carrying his breakfast and a little vase of violets on a tray.