Violet: A Fairy Story

WHERE THE SQUIRREL LED VIOLET

While Violet stood wondering thus, she saw a squirrel on the fence, nibbling upon a nut. As soon as she stirred, he darted along a rail or two, and then, waiting till she came up with him, went nibbling again.

"You needn't feel so grand with your spry legs. I guess I can run as well as you," said Violet.

The squirrel tucked the nut under one arm, and with a whisk of his bushy tail, darted like lightning along the rails, leaving Violet so far behind she thought he had gone into the wood; but when she had reached far enough herself, there he sat, quietly nibbling at his nut again, and soon as he saw her, whisked up into a tree, and from among the high boughs called, "Cheep, cheep, chip! Which beat, little girl?"

Violet could not see him, he went so fast and far; and as she looked up among the leafy boughs, he dropped the nut right into her face, and ran round and round the limb, and called "Cheep, cheep, chip!" again, as if he were laughing at her.

Violet laughed too, and threw the nut back at him, looking first to see how clean he had eaten out the meat.

Away darted squirrel, without waiting to chip this time, and Violet called, as he ran, —

"It's all very fine to whisk along so fast, mister; but I should like to know how much good your travelling does. I know you can't see a thing, any more than they can in the rail cars I've heard about. You're welcome to your legs so long as you leave the brook, and the flowers, and birds for puss and me."

But he only answered by dropping another nut from directly over her head, and she followed him into the wood – the beautiful, cool, still wood. Violet left off singing as she entered it; for she loved to hear the rustle of the ripe leaves, and to watch the tiny fibres falling lightly from the pines, and hear the nuts and acorns rattle down, and to see the spider webs and insects glitter wherever a gleam of sunshine had stolen through the boughs.

Her hands were full of flowers, which she had gathered on the way; for she did not mean her new cup should be empty when the good parents came home.

So she had picked such a splendid bunch! – bright red cardinal flowers from the swamp; and along by the brook side, where it was sunniest, she found beautiful blue fringed gentians; and farther on branches of golden rod, that looked like little elm trees changed to gold; and on farther still, by the edge of the wood, where, as they waved, they seemed beckoning her, she found plenty of asters, white as snow, with little yellow eyes twinkling out among the petals, or else rich purple with deep gold inside; and she had some of the everlasting flowers too, like bunches of pure pearls.

Violet crept under the deep shade of the boughs, where the brook was gurgling over its mossy stones, and laid the stems of her flowers there to keep them fresh, making a wall of pebbles around them, so that the water, which tripped along so fast, should not carry them away.

For once, when she forgot to do this, she had no sooner placed her flowers in the brook than off they sailed down stream, and scattered so fast and far she couldn't think of finding them all again.

Violet laughed when she remembered that day, and how the brook, full of its mischief, had run away with her treasures, and scattered them any and every where along its banks, setting some upright, as if they were growing again, and wedging some under the stones, and tangling some under the fence, and floating some down the hill and through the sunny field, so fast they seemed chasing the little fish that made their home in the brook.

Even away down by Reuben's house a few had strayed, and reached home so much before Violet that she began to think the waves had, after all, as spry feet as her own.

CHAPTER XVI.

ALONE IN THE WOOD

Her flowers safe in the water, the little girl seated herself on a stone that seemed made purposely for her, it was cushioned so softly with moss; and overhead the boughs of the great trees bent towards her, and rustled and waved like so many fans, and shut her in so closely from the rest of the wood that you might have passed close by, and never guessed she was there.

The kitten went fast asleep in her lap, and Violet, folding her hands, looked up among the leaves, and across where the boughs parted a little into the wood, and down at her feet, where the grass grew so long and fine, and was sprinkled over with such pretty little leaves – as tiny, some of them, as Violet's finger nails, and yet as beautifully scolloped or pointed, and as perfectly finished, as the stoutest laurel or broadest oak leaf in the wood; and, noticing this, Violet wondered if God, who had taken as much pains in making little leaves as big ones, had not taken as much pains with, and didn't care as much for, little people as big ones.

Who knew but he loved her, in her ragged dress, just as well as Narcissa in all her finery, or even the tall, rich doctor, who tried to mend Toady's leg?

Then she listened, and felt how still it was there alone with the trees; and the sweet, low sounds that came through this stillness were beautiful as music.

Far off she could hear the cool, sparkling brook foaming and hurrying over its stony bed; and then the air came breathing through the trees, as if they sighed for joy; and each leaf trembled, and seemed rising to meet the air and fly away with it, and then, falling back again, nestled closer to its neighbor leaves, and whispered softly, as if it were making love to them.

But there came a louder rustling among the boughs, and a flutter of wings, and then burst forth a clear, wild song, so near that Violet held her breath; for a golden oriole had alighted close beside her, and chirped, and twittered, and trilled, as if he meant to say aloud what the leaves and the brook had been whispering.

When he paused, the leaves all clapped their hands for more; and oriole understood them, for he gave another and another song, waiting between each to wet his bill in some bunch of bright, juicy berries.

Violet did not suspect that the reason the sunshine looked so bright, and the shadows so cool and refreshing, and the leaves and brook so wide awake and so musical, was because the good fairies Love and Contentment were watching over her; and the beautiful purple light from Love's wings, and from Contentment's starry crown, and the fragrance from her lily urn, would make any, the dullest place, bright.

But as the bird flew away, Fairy Love whispered inside of Violet's heart, "The bird has gone to her nest. Isn't it time for Violet to be thinking about her nest, and the good mother, who will be there first if she does not make haste and run home?"

Love's voice was lower than the whisper of the leaves or the far-off murmur of the brook; but the little girl heard and obeyed it for all that.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE KITTEN'S BATH

Violet had picked a whole apron full of leaves, reaching up in the trees for the largest and handsomest, and then, kneeling where they grew close to the ground, had collected the lovely, delicate ones that were so small you would not notice unless you were looking for them – broad, shining oak leaves, long, graceful chestnut leaves, and some from the fluttering poplar, and some from the hemlocks and pines, tall ferns, and maiden's-hair, and grass, clover, sorrel, ground pine, and hundreds more.

Violet had been counting how many kinds there were; and as I have forgotten, the first time you go into the woods you must try yourself, and lay them side by side, as she did, to see which is prettiest.

But away flew all the leaves, as, directly she heard Love's voice, the little girl sprang to her feet, waking puss out of her nap so suddenly that she spit, and put up her back, and her hair stood all on end with fright.

Then you might have heard Violet's laughter ringing merrily enough through the silent wood.

Such an unusual noise startled a whole flock of crows, where, hid in a tall pine tree, they had, like pussy, been taking a nap, and scolded well because they were awakened.

Violet wondered if it would help the matter to make such a noise about it with their hoarse voices, which sounded as if they were made on purpose to scold – so grating and shrill.

She went to the brook for her flowers, while the kitten followed, gaping such great gapes that Violet told her she'd better take care, or she wouldn't be able to close her mouth again. And looking back among the trees, as she climbed the stone wall and was going out into the sunshine again, Violet wondered if God could have made that beautiful place for no one but her; no one else entered it, she knew.

"I guess God thinks it's no matter how small I am, so long as I'm large enough to love it all," she thought; and I don't believe Violet was wrong.

As they went home, a great cricket flew from under the kitten's feet and frightened her again, for she was hardly awake. Away she sprang to catch it, and away sprang the cricket, while Violet had to run fast to keep up with them, laughing to see how puzzled puss would be when the cricket hid under the long grass; and while she was pawing, and purring, and looking up to Violet as if she'd ask, "Where is he?" out he'd spring again, directly past her nose, and in among the grass would hide, and peep at her, while she looked every where but in the right place.

At last, in her eagerness, the kitten jumped rather too far, and went into the brook; and in her fright I don't know what would have happened next if Violet had not seized her just as, mewing and trembling, the water was washing her down stream.

She lapped Violet's face and purred as the little girl tried to dry her fur and warm her again in her bosom; but she was a wilful puss, and preferred creeping along in the sunshine, shaking each of her four paws at every step in the drollest fashion. But she didn't chase any more crickets that day.

This affair of the kitten's, and waiting to look for her berries, which Violet had hid among the bushes so safely she could not find them herself at first, delayed her so long that she almost flew the rest of the way; for when the old people went to market with their goods, they always came home tired and hungry, and were very glad of a cup of warm tea.

So she did not stop flying until a fire was made and the table set; and just then she heard voices at the door.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE PRICE OF TOADY'S LEG

Reuben and Mary had come; and glad enough Violet was to see them; but this, like all her days, had been so long that she forgot to say a word about her flowers and the gilded cup; she could not remember back to the morning, until her mother asked if she knew whose birthday this was; and then it all came back, and she gave more thanks and kisses than there had been flowers in the cup.

"But why is it empty?" asked Reuben.

And Violet told about the carriage, and Narcissa, and Toady's misfortune, and the kind doctor, who had waited to mend the mischief his daughter had done, and how he took her violets, leaving money in their stead.

You should have seen the old people hold up their hands when Violet showed them the coin she had only looked upon as so many bright stones.

Their marketing had not sold as well as usual, and the winter was to be a hard one for poor people, every one said; and they had been telling each other, as they came home, that if Providence had not taken care of them so well thus far, they should certainly expect to starve now.

And here stood Violet with six silver dollars! They could hardly believe their eyes. Some fairy must have given it to the child.