The Counterpane Fairy

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THE COUNTERPANE FAIRY

by Katharine Pyle

Contents

Chapter I -- THE PRINCESS OF THE GOLDEN CASTLE
Chapter II -- THE OWLS AND THE GAMBLESOME ELF
Chapter III -- STARLEIN AND SILVERLING
Chapter IV -- THE MAGIC CIRCUS
Chapter V -- AT THE EDGE OF THE POLAR SEA
Chapter VI -- THE RUBY RING
Chapter VII -- THE RAINBOW CHILDREN
Chapter VIII -- HARRIETT'S DREAM
Chapter IX -- DOWN THE RAT-HOLE
Chapter X -- THE COUNTERPANE FAIRY SAYS GOOD-BYE

THE COUNTERPANE FAIRY.

CHAPTER FIRST.

THE PRINCESS OF THE GOLDEN CASTLE

TEDDY was all alone, for his mother had been up with him so much the
night before that at about four o'clock in the afternoon she said that
she was going to lie down for a little while.

The room where Teddy lay was very pleasant, with two big windows, and
the furniture covered with gay old-fashioned India calico. His mother
had set a glass of milk on the table beside his bed, and left the stair
door ajar so that he could call Hannah, the cook, if he wanted anything,
and then she had gone over to her own room.

The little boy had always enjoyed being ill, for then he was read aloud
to and had lemonade, but this had been a real illness, and though he was
better now, the doctor still would not let him have anything but milk
and gruel. He was feeling rather lonely, too, though the fire crackled
cheerfully, and he could hear Hannah singing to herself in the kitchen
below.

Teddy turned over the leaves of Robinson Crusoe for a while, looking at
the gaily colored pictures, and then he closed it and called, "Hannah!"
The singing in the kitchen below ceased, and Teddy knew that Hannah was
listening. "Hannah!" he called again.

At the second call Hannah came hurrying up the stairs and into the room.
"What do you want, Teddy?" she asked.

"Hannah, I want to ask mamma something," said Teddy.

"Oh," said Hannah, "you wouldn't want me to call your poor mother, would
you, when she was up with you the whole of last night and has just gone
to lie down a bit?"

"I want to ask her something," repeated Teddy.

"You ask me what you want to know," suggested Hannah. "Your poor
mother's so tired that I'm sure you are too much of a man to want me to
call her."

"Well, I want to ask her if I may have a cracker," said Teddy.

"Oh, no; you couldn't have that," said Hannah. "Don't you know that the
doctor said you mustn't have anything but milk and gruel? Did you want
to ask her anything else?"

"No," said Teddy, and his lip trembled.

After that Hannah went down-stairs to her work again, and Teddy lay
staring out of the window at the windy gray clouds that were sweeping
across the April sky. He grew lonelier and lonelier and a lump rose in
his throat; presently a big tear trickled down his cheek and dripped off
his chin.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" said a little voice just back of the hill his knees
made as he lay with them drawn up in bed; "what a hill to climb!"

Teddy stopped crying and gazed wonderingly toward where the voice came
from, and presently over the top of his knees appeared a brown peaked
hood, a tiny withered face, a flapping brown cloak, and last of all two
small feet in buckled shoes. It was a little old woman, so weazened and
brown that she looked more like a dried leaf than anything else.

She seated herself on Teddy's knees and gazed down at him solemnly, and
she was so light that he felt her weight no more than if she had been a
feather.

Teddy lay staring at her for a while, and then he asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm the Counterpane Fairy," said the little figure, in a thin little
voice.

"I don't know what that is," said Teddy.

"Well," said the Counterpane Fairy, "it's the sort of a fairy that lives
in houses and watches out for the children. I used to be one of the
court fairies, but I grew tired of that. There was nothing in it, you
know."

"Nothing in what?" asked Teddy.

"Nothing in the court life. All day the fairies were swinging in
spider-webs and sipping honey-dew, or playing games of hide-and-go-seek.
The only comfort I had was with an old field-mouse who lived at the edge
of the wood, and I used to spend a great deal of time with her; I used
to take care of her babies when she was out hunting for something to
eat; cunning little things they were,--five of them, all fat and soft,
and with such funny little tails."

"What became of them?"

"Oh, they moved away. They left before I did. As soon as they were old
enough, Mother Field-mouse went. She said she couldn't stand the court
fairies. They were always playing tricks on her, stopping up the door of
her house with sticks and acorns, and making faces at her babies until
they almost drove them into fits. So after that I left too."

"Where did you go?"

"Oh, hither and yon. Mostly where there were little sick boys and
girls."

"Do you like little boys?"

"Yes, when they don't cry," said the Counterpane Fairy, staring at him
very hard.

"Well, I was lonely," said Teddy. "I wanted my mamma."

"Yes, I know, but you oughtn't to have cried. I came to you, though,
because you were lonely and sick, and I thought maybe you would like me
to show you a story."

"Do you mean tell me a story?" asked Teddy.

"No," said the fairy, "I mean show you a story. It's a game I invented
after I joined the Counterpane Fairies. Choose any one of the squares of
the counterpane and I will show you how to play it. That's all you have
to do,--to choose a square."

Teddy looked the counterpane over carefully. "I think I'll choose that
yellow square," he said, "because it looks so nice and bright."

"Very well," said the Counterpane Fairy. "Look straight at it and don't
turn your eyes away until I count seven times seven and then you shall
see the story of it."

Teddy fixed his eyes on the square and the fairy began to count.
"One--two--three--four," she counted; Teddy heard her voice, thin and
clear as the hissing of the logs on the hearth. "Don't look away from
the square," she cried. "Five--six--seven"--it seemed to Teddy that the
yellow silk square was turning to a mist before his eyes and wrapping
everything about him in a golden glow. "Thirteen--fourteen"--the fairy
counted on and on. "Forty-six--forty-seven--forty-eight--FORTY-NINE!"

At the words forty-nine, the Counterpane Fairy clapped her hands and
Teddy looked about him. He was no longer in a golden mist. He was
standing in a wonderful enchanted garden. The sky was like the golden
sky at sunset, and the grass was so thickly set with tiny yellow flowers
that it looked like a golden carpet. From this garden stretched a long
flight of glass steps. They reached up and up and up to a great golden
castle with shining domes and turrets.

"Listen!" said the Counterpane Fairy. "In that golden castle there lies
an enchanted princess. For more than a hundred years she has been lying
there waiting for the hero who is to come and rescue her, and you are
the hero who can do it if you will."

With that the fairy led him to a little pool close by, and bade him look
in the water. When Teddy looked, he saw himself standing there in the
golden garden, and he did not appear as he ever had before. He was tall
and strong and beautiful, like a hero.

"Yes," said Teddy, "I will do it."

At these words, from the grass, the bushes, and the tress around,
suddenly started a flock of golden birds. They circled about him and
over him, clapping their wings and singing triumphantly. Their song
reminded Teddy of the blackbirds that sang on the lawn at home in the
early spring, when the daffodils were up. Then in a moment they were all
gone, and the garden was still again.

Their song had filled his heart with a longing for great deeds, and,
without pausing longer, he ran to the glass steps and began to mount
them.

Up and up and up he went. Once he turned and waved his hand to the
Counterpane Fairy in the golden garden far below. She waved her hand in
answer, and he heard her voice faint and clear. "Good-bye! Good-bye! Be
brave and strong, and beware of that that is little and gray."

Then Teddy turned his face toward the castle, and in a moment he was
standing before the great shining gates.

He raised his hand and struck bravely upon the door. There was no
answer. Again he struck upon it, and his blow rang through the hall
inside; then he opened the door and went in.

The hall was five-sided, and all of pure gold, as clear and shining as
glass. Upon three sides of it were three arched doors; one was of
emerald, one was of ruby, and one was of diamond; they were arched, and
tall, and wide,--fit for a hero to go through. The question was,
behind which one lay the enchanted princess.

While Teddy stood there looking at them and wondering, he heard a little
thin voice, that seemed to be singing to itself, and this is what it
sang:

"In and out and out and in,
Quick as a flash I weave and spin.
Some may mistake and some forget,
But I'll have my spider-web finished yet."

When Teddy heard the song, he knew that someone must be awake in the
enchanted castle, so he began looking about him.

On the fourth side of the wall there hung a curtain of silvery-gray
spider-web, and the voice seemed to come from it. The hero went toward
it, but he saw nothing, for the spider that was spinning it moved so
fast that no eyes could follow it. Presently it paused up in the
left-hand corner of the web, and then Teddy saw it. It looked very
little to have spun all that curtain of silvery web.

As Teddy stood looking at it, it began to sing again:

"Here in my shining web I sit,
To look about and rest a bit.
I rest myself a bit and then,
Quick as a flash, I begin again."

"Mistress Spinner! Mistress Spinner!" cried Teddy. "Can you tell me
where to find the enchanted princess who lies asleep waiting for me to
come and rescue her?"

The spider sat quite still for a while, and then it said in a voice as
thin as a hair: "You must go through the emerald door; you must go
through the emerald door. What so fit as the emerald door for the hero
who would do great deeds?"

Teddy did not so much as stay to thank the little gray spinner, he was
in such a hurry to find the princess, but turning he sprang to the
emerald door, flung it open, and stepped outside.

He found himself standing on the glass steps, and as his foot touched
the topmost one the whole flight closed up like an umbrella, and in a
moment Teddy was sliding down the smooth glass pane, faster and faster
and faster until he could hardly catch his breath.

The next thing he knew he was standing in the golden garden, and there
was the Counterpane Fairy beside him looking at him sadly. "You should
have known better than to try the emerald door," she said; "and now
shall we break the story?"

"Oh, no, no!" cried Teddy, and he was still the hero. "Let me try once
more, for it may be I can yet save the princess."

Then the Counterpane Fairy smiled. "Very well," she said, "you shall
try again; but remember what I told you, beware of that that is little
and gray, and take this with you, for it may be of use." Stooping, she
picked up a blade of grass from the ground and handed it to him.

The hero took it wondering, and in his hands it was changed to a sword
that shone so brightly that it dazzled his eyes. Then he turned, and
there was the long flight of glass steps leading up to the golden castle
just as before; so thrusting the magic sword into his belt, he ran
nimbly up and up and up, and not until he reached the very topmost step
did he turn and look back to wave farewell to the Counterpane Fairy
below. She waved her hand to him. "Remember," she called, "beware of
what is little and gray."

He opened the door and went into the five-sided golden hall, and there
were the three doors just as before, and the spider spinning and singing
on the fourth side:

"Now the brave hero is wiser indeed;
He may have failed once, but he still may succeed.
Dull are the emeralds; diamonds are bright;
So is his wisdom that shines as the light."

"The diamond door!" cried Teddy. "Yes, that is the door that I should
have tried. How could I have thought the emerald door was it?" and
opening the diamond door he stepped through it.

He hardly had time to see that he was standing at the top of the glass
steps, before--br-r-r-r!--they had shut up again into a smooth glass
hill, and there he was spinning down them so fast that the wind whistled
past his ears.

In less time than it takes to tell, he was back again for the third time
in the golden garden, with the Counterpane Fairy standing before him,
and he was ashamed to raise his eyes.

"So!" said the Counterpane Fairy. "Did you know no better than to open
the diamond door?"

"No," said Teddy, "I knew no better."

"Then," said the fairy, "if you can pay no better heed to my warnings
than that, the princess must wait for another hero, for you are not the
one."

"Let me try but once more," cried Teddy, "for this time I shall surely
find her."

"Then you may try once more and for the last time," said the fairy, "but
beware of what is little and gray." Stooping she picked from the grass
beside her a fallen acorn cup and handed it to him. "Take this with
you," she said, "for it may serve you well."

As he took it from her, it was changed in his hand to a goblet of gold
set round with precious stones. He thrust it into his bosom, for he was
in haste, and turning he ran for the third time up the flight of glass
steps. This time so eager was he that he never once paused to look back,
but all the time he ran on up and up he was wondering what it was that
she meant about her warning. She had said, "Beware of what is little and
gray." What had he seen that was little and gray?

As soon as he reached the great golden hall he walked over to the
curtain of spider-web. The spider was spinning so fast that it was
little more than a gray streak, but presently it stopped up in the
left-hand corner of the web. As the hero looked at it he saw that it was
little and gray. Then it began to sing to him in its little thin voice:

"Great hero, wiser than ever before,
Try the red door, try the red door.
Open the door that is ruby, and then
You never need search for the princess again."

"No, I will not open the ruby door," cried Teddy. "Twice have you sent
me back to the golden garden, and now you shall fool me no more."

As he said this he saw that one corner of the spider-web curtain was
still unfinished, in spite of the spider's haste, and underneath was
something that looked like a little yellow door. Then suddenly he knew
that that was the door he must go through. He caught hold of the curtain
and pulled, but it was as strong as steel. Quick as a flash he snatched
from his belt the magic sword, and with one blow the curtain was cut in
two, and fell at his feet.

He heard the little gray spider calling to him in its thin voice, but he
paid no heed, for he had opened the little yellow door and stooped his
head and entered.

Beyond was a great courtyard all of gold, and with a fountain leaping
and splashing back into a golden basin in the middle. Bet what he saw
first of all was the enchanted princess, who lay stretched out as if
asleep upon a couch all covered with cloth of gold. He knew she was a
princess, because she was so beautiful and because she wore a golden
crown.

He stood looking at her without stirring, and at last he whispered:
"Princess! Princess! I have come to save you."

Still she did not stir. He bent and touched her, but she lay there in
her enchanted sleep, and her eyes did not open. Then Teddy looked about
him, and seeing the fountain he drew the magic cup from his bosom and,
filling it, sprinkled the hands and face of the princess with the water.

Then her eyes opened and she raised herself upon her elbow and smiled.
"Have you come at last?" she cried.

"Yes," answered Teddy, "I have come."

The princess looked about her. "But what became of the spider?" she
said. Then Teddy, too, looked about, and there was the spider running
across the floor toward where the princess lay.

Quickly he sprang from her side and set his foot upon it. There was a
thin squeak and then--there was nothing left of the little gray spinner
but a tiny gray smudge on the floor.

Instantly the golden castle was shaken from top to bottom, and there was
a sound of many voices shouting outside. The princess rose to her feet
and caught the hero by the hand. "You have broken the enchantment," she
cried, "and now you shall be the King of the Golden Castle and reign
with me."

"Oh, but I can't," said Teddy, "because--because---"

But the princess drew him out with her through the hall, and there they
were at the head of the flight of glass steps. A great host of soldiers
and courtiers were running up it. They were dressed in cloth of gold,
and they shouted at the sight of Teddy: "Hail to the hero! Hail to the
hero!" and Teddy knew them by their voices for the golden birds that had
fluttered around him in the garden below.

"And all this is yours," said the beautiful princess, turning toward him
with---

* * * * * * * *

"So that is the story of the yellow square," said the Counterpane Fairy.

Teddy looked about him. The golden castle was gone, and the stairs, and
the shouting courtiers. He was lying in bed with the silk coverlet over
his little knees and Hannah was still singing in the kitchen below.

"Did you like it?" asked the fairy.

Teddy heaved a deep sigh. "Oh! Wasn't it beautiful?" he said. Then he
lay for a while thinking and smiling. "Wasn't the princess lovely?" he
whispered half to himself.

The Counterpane Fairy got up slowly and stiffly, and picked up the staff
that she had laid down beside her. "Well, I must be journeying on," she
said.

"Oh, no, no!" cried Teddy. "Please don't go yet."

"Yes, I must," said the Counterpane Fairy. "I hear your mother coming."

"But will you come back again?" cried Teddy.

The Counterpane Fairy made no answer. She was walking down the other
side of the bedquilt hill, and Teddy heard her voice, little and thin,
dying away in the distance: "Oh dear, dear, dear! What a hill to go
down! What a hill it is! Oh dear, dear, dear!"

Then the door opened and his mother came in. She was looking rested,
and she smiled at him lovingly, but the little brown Counterpane Fairy
was gone.

CHAPTER SECOND.

THE OWLS AND THE GAMBLESOME ELF.

THE next morning when Teddy awoke it was still very early; so early that
even Hannah was not yet stirring.

Outside everything was wrapped in a silvery mist, and now and then a
drop of moisture plumped down on the porch roof.

Teddy lay still for a while, growing wider and wider awake, and then he
began to stir restlessly and wish that his mother would come. After a
while he called her, but the house was so silent that he didn't like to
call very loudly, and there was no answer.

He thought he would call again, and then suddenly he remembered the
Counterpane Fairy, and wondered if she would like little boys who called
their mothers so early.

He turned over in bed, and raising his knees into a hill stared at the
yellow silk square and thought of the wonderful golden castle where she
had taken him the day before. He wished he knew what all the bird people
would have done when they reached the top of the stairs. He thought they
would have put a golden crown on his head and made him king.

And the princess was so beautiful he longed to see her again. How
surprised Hannah would have been if she had heard voices, and had come
up-stairs to see who it was, and had found the beautiful princess
sitting with him, and had seen the golden crown on his head! If she only
knew about it she would never call him a mischievous boy again. He had
done a great deal more than Hannah could.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" said a little voice just back of his knees; "almost
at the top, anyway." Teddy knew the voice; it was that of the
Counterpane Fairy, and there was the top of her brown hood showing over
his knees. He watched, breathless with eagerness, until he saw her face
appear above them, and then he cried out: "I wondered whether you would
come; I'm so glad. Are you going to show me another story, and will you
stay a long while?"

The Counterpane Fairy said nothing until she had sat down on top of his
knees for a while and caught her breath, and then she said: "Well, well!
It's steeper than it was yesterday. I thought I should never get across
that satin square, it was so slippery."

"Shall I put my knees down?" asked Teddy, moving them.

"For mercy's sake! no," said the fairy, clutching at the quilt. "You
might upset me. Keep right still and I'll show you another story."

"Oh, yes!" cried Teddy; "please do; and let me go to the golden castle
again."

"No, I can't do that," said the Counterpane Fairy, "for that was
yesterday's story, and this will be another."

"But what became of the princess?" asked Teddy.

"Oh! she married the hero, of course," said the fairy.

"But I thought I was the hero."

"There, there!" said the fairy, impatiently, "I told you that was
yesterday's story, and if you want to see any more you must choose
another square."

"Well, I will," said Teddy. "May I choose that green square?"

"Yes," said the fairy. "Now fix your eyes on it while I count."

Teddy began to stare at the green square so hard that he scarcely
winked, but he heard the Counterpane Fairy counting on in her thin
little voice until she reached FORTY-NINE.

The green square spread and grew just as the yellow one had done while
she counted, until Teddy seemed drifting off into endless green spaces.
Then the Counterpane Fairy clapped her hands and he saw that he was
hovering over a grassy hillside.

"Now you are an elf, you know," he heard the fairy say.

At the bottom of the green hill there was a brook, and at the top was a
line of shady green woods. Overhead the sky was very blue, with shining
heaps of cottony white clouds; a soft wind was blowing, but the sun was
warm, and insects were buzzing past intent on business. A brown bird
whirred by and dropped out of sight among the grasses.

Teddy floated through the air lighter than a feather, and he felt so
happy that he clapped his hands together and turned head over heels in
the air. As he came right side up again he saw a bit of thistle-down
drifting on up the hill, and he was so little that when he flew after it
and set himself astride of it, it seemed as big as a barrel to him. He
floated on up the hill with it, and the wind was like a cushion behind
him.

As they reached the edge of the hill the thistle-down caught on a bush,
and Teddy almost has his leg wedged between it and a leaf. He jumped off
in a hurry, and stood looking about him and wondering what he should do
next.

Suddenly he saw something that made him open his eyes wide in
astonishment. Four large black-and-yellow butterflies were tied to a
knot on an old tree close by, but it was not at the butterflies
themselves that he wondered, for he had often seen them flitting about
the fields; it was at the way they were loaded down with the strangest
things: all sorts of fairy household furniture--little chairs and
tables, bedsteads, tiny pots and pans, a great soup-kettle almost as
large as a huckleberry, two thistle-down mattresses, and a number of
other things. All these were very neatly packed and tied between the
butterflies' wings with spider-web ropes.

In the middle of the knot was a hole, but instead of being round, as a
knot-hole generally is, it was square, and there was a little door
fitted into it.

Suddenly this door opened, and on the threshold of it stood a beautiful
little fairy. She stood there looking about, and then she drew from her
pocket a handkerchief, thin and delicate as gossamer, and wiped her
eyes. After that she began to sob, and Teddy knew that what he had
thought was the buzzing of a bee inside the knot had really been the
sound of her weeping.

"Hello!" called the elf.

The fairy stopped sobbing and looked about her. When she saw Teddy she
stared at him for a moment and then she began to wipe her eyes and sob
again.

Teddy climbed up the branch of a blackberry bush until he was quite
close to the knot-hole, and sat down on the stem and stared at her.
"What makes you cry?" he asked.

Still the fairy said nothing, but she folded her little handkerchief,
though it was quite wet, and put it carefully back into her pocket.

Just then in the doorway at her side appeared another fairy. He was
quite different from her, though he, too, was very small. He was as
withered as a dried pea, and looked as though he must be at least a
hundred years old.

"Is everything packed up?" he asked in a querulous voice. Then his eyes
fell on Teddy the elf. He scowled until his little pin-pricks of eyes
almost disappeared. "Ugh! there's one of those nasty gamblesome elves,"
he said. "Now mischief's sure to follow."

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