THE BOOK FAIRIES

BEATRICE HARRADEN

"I DO believe I went to sleep over that longdivision sum," said Beryl, as she took up her pen, and tried to go on with her work. "Sums are sleepy things, to be sure."

She screwed her little lips together, and tried very hard to make nine go into twenty-one four times, with no remainder.

"I think that's not quite right," she said to Arabella Stuart, who sat propped up against the dictionary.

“I should think it wasn't!" said a sharp voice.

Beryl looked up, and saw that her arithmetic and her grammar were wide open, and that a number of little people had crept out of the leaves, and were trying to pull off the brown paper covers, which Beryl had stitched on so carefully.

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Beryl," they said, "don't ever put brown paper covers on your books. Fairies don't like it. When you see a brown paper cover torn, you may be quite sure that the fairies have been at work. Naturally enough, too! For how would you like to be covered with brown paper?"

"I'm sure I'm very sorry," said Beryl, sadly. "I never knew till a few minutes ago that fairies lived in books. Pray tell me who are you."

"We are the arithmetic-fairies," said the little gentleman who had reproved her. "And those grave-looking persons yonder are the grammarfairies."

How do you do, Beryl?" said the grammarfairies, advancing toward her in an orderly procession. Won't you break your ranks," said Beryl, "and come and sit down a little while? You look tired," she said, addressing a pale little lady; “pray sit down."

'No, thank you, dear," said the pale little lady; "and besides, I must not leave my place, for I am a preposition-fairy; and you know it is my duty to go

before the noun."

"So it is," said Beryl; "but I thought you might make an exception to the rule this time, as you've come to visit me. Do you always have to observe grammar rules, even in holiday-time?"

"Well," said some of the grammar-fairies to each other, "suppose we do let the rules take care of themselves to-day in honor of Beryl. She's not particular, you know. Let all who agree, hold up their right hands."

All the verbs, and adverbs, and prepositions, and adjectives, held up their right hands, but the conjunctions were a little sulky.

"Don't take any notice of the conjunctions," said the others. "They are always disagreeable, and never will join in any fun."

"Please, conjunction-fairies," pleaded Beryl, smiling, "do say 'yes.""

No one could resist Beryl when she smiled, and so the conjunction-fairies agreed with the others, that all rules should be abolished, for that evening at least. And you would have been amazed to see what a terrible confusion took place among the grammar-fairies. The adjectives danced with the verbs, and the adverbs played leap-frog with the nouns, and the prepositions, who are never allowed to be together, joined hands, and skipped about, singing louder than any yellow canary bird.

Hurrah! hurrah!" they cried; “isn't it pleasant not to be in a sentence? I suppose you never have been in a grammar sentence, Beryl?"

Well," said the arithmetic-fairies, in astonishment, "we should not have believed that the grammar-fairies could have been such good companions. But we are really glad of it; for we had a message by the telephone from the history-fairies, saying that you wished to see us. So of course, having come here, we ought all to make ourselves agreeable to our big hostess."

"I think, Beryl dear," said a little arithmeticfairy, sitting down on her long-division sum, "that you've made a little mistake in your work. I'll just correct that mistake.

Here was your fault, Beryl," he said.

"You

ought to know your multiplication-table better. Now, if you like, we'll tell you a little about book

life."

"I shall be so very much obliged," said Beryl, eagerly.

"You know we are the book fairies," said the fairy. "We live in dictionaries, and grammars, and spelling-books, and poetry, and geography books, and story-books of all kinds, and when we are tired of one book, we march into another book. Some

times, though, we are shut up for years in great

book-cases, and no one takes us out, and no one cares about us; and what do you think we do then? "I can't imagine," said Beryl, who was listening eagerly.

"Well," continued the fairy, "when we cannot bear it any longer, we bore little holes from one book to another, right through all the leaves, and right through the covers; tiny holes, you know, but quite big enough for us to get through."

"How strange!" said Beryl. "I have seen that sort of holes, but I always thought they were made by book-worms, not by book fairies."

The fairies laughed.

"Really, what stupid mistakes you mortals do make!" they said. "There are no such things as book-worms."

"Once," continued the little arithmetic-fairy, "we were shut up in a Greek dictionary, and we were so

tired of being there, year after year, that one day we began boring, just just as you mortals bore a tunnel. We passed through all manner of books, and the inhabitants of each book asked us to stop, and make our home with them. There is plenty of room,' some of them said; 'you see how very wide the margins are.'

"At last we came to a lovely old poetry-book, full of the most beautiful poems and of the sweetest thoughts, and we stopped there. We felt that we could not possibly find a more beautiful land. It was worth all the trouble of going the distance, to live in so lovely a book as that."

"Was the binding very beautiful?" asked Beryl. "Yes," answered the fairy. "It was the handsomest book I ever lived in - not that I am at all particular about the binding. It had a gilt border stamped on it. No one ever took the trouble to open that book-case, until one day a little girl came into the library. She jumped upon a chair, opened the case, and said:

"Poor dear books, how dusty you all are ! I shall go and get a duster and clean you up.'

"Then she ran out of the room, and, after a few minutes, came back with two great dusters. She tucked up her sleeves and pinned up her white dress, and set to work in real earnest. She took us

down so tenderly, one by one."

"How nice of her!" said Beryl.