“That’s what I’d like to know,” replied the boy, picking himself up. “I never felt so small in my life, not even when I tore my Sunday shirt and my great-aunt scolded me before everybody! Why, I’m no bigger than a sea-horse!”
The daisies were still laughing and now they could no longer contain themselves.
“He ate fairy-bread,” they giggled, “and he grew as little as a balloon when the air goes out, ho, ho, ho, ho! Tee, tee, tee, tee!”
“Ate fairy-bread!” exclaimed Birdling, “do you mean to say I am a fairy now?”
The Bumble-bee put his head on one side and deliberated.
“No,” he said slowly, “You’re not a fairy. You’re only fairyish. What’s your name?”
“I haven’t any. But people call me Birdling.”
“Well, that’s not so bad. What can you do?”
“Where will you live? You are too small to live with your great-aunt. She would surely step on you.”
Birdling looked around; there was a groundsparrow’s nest under the witch-hazel bushes, very near the fairy-bread flowers.
“Here,” he said, “If nobody minds, I’ll live here.”
So that is where he lived all summer. Everybody on the hill grew fond of him, and in the mornings when the robin sang to the sun, Birdling too would be up and whistling.
But one day the Bumble-bee came to call. His face was serious and his voice unusually rumbly. It was a cool day so Birdling was all wrapped in a mullen leaf.
“It’s Autumn!” said Bumble. “What will you do when Winter comes?”
“You aren’t a bird or a fairy,” objected the visitor.
“But you said I could if I was fairyish!”
“No, I said you might. You may, but you can’t. See?”
Then Birdling remembered the Little Dipper, lying forlorn on the sands, beyond the reaches of the tide. Perhaps some boy had picked her up, or perhaps the waves had taken her—or perhaps she was still in her harbor!
Neatly he folded some mullen-leaves, for sailors need warm clothes and blankets, and with these over his arm he began the long journey from the hill-top to the harbor. It was ten fairy-miles of rather rough walking. The Bumble-bee went with him and when they had come as far as his great-aunt’s house, which was just half-way between the hill and the beach, he flew up on her roof where you could get a splendid view of the country.
“Oh, can you see the Little Dipper?” cried Birdling from below.