Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial05dodg).pdf/103

 1877.] would have been dreadful, always supposing that fairies can be walked over; my own belief is that they are something of the nature of will-o’-the-wisps, and there ’s no walking over them.

Think of any pretty little boy you know, rather fat, with rosy cheeks, large dark eyes, and tangled brown hair, and then fancy him made small enough to go comfortably into a coffee-cup, and you ’ll have a very fair idea of what the little creature was like.

“What's your name; little fellow?" I began, in as soft a voice as I could manage. And, by the way, that’s another of the curious things in life that I never could quite understand—why we always begin by asking little children their names; is it because we fancy there is n't quite enough of them, and a name will help to make them a little bigger? You never thought of asking a real large man his name, now, did you? But, however that may be, I felt it quite necessary to know his name; so, as he didn’t answer my question, | asked it again a little louder. “What’s your name, my little man?”

“What's yours?” he said, without looking up.

“My name’s Lewis Carroll,” I said, quite gently, for he was much too small to be angry with for answering so uncivilly.

“Duke of Anything?” he asked, just looking at me for a moment, and then going on with his work.

“Not Duke at all,” I said, a little ashamed of having to confess it.

“You ’re big enough to be two Dukes,” said the little creature. “I suppose you ’re Sir Something, then?”

“No,” I said, feeling more and more ashamed, “I have n't got any title.”

The fairy seemed to think that in that case I really was n’t worth the trouble of talking to, for he quietly went on digging, and tearing the flowers to pieces as fast as he got them out of the ground. After a few minutes I tried again:

“Please tell me what your name is.”

“B’uno,” the little fellow answered, very readily. “Why did n’t you say ‘please’ before?”

“That ’s something like what we used to be taught in the nursery,” I thought to myself, looking back through the long years (about a hundred and fifty of them) to the time when I used to be a little child myself. And here an idea came into my head, and I asked him, “Are n’t you one of the fairies that teach children to be good?”

“Well, we have to do that sometimes,” said Bruno, “and a d’eadful bother it is.”

As he said this, he savagely tore a heart’s-ease in two, and trampled on the pieces.

“What are you doing there, Bruno?” I said.

“Spoiling Sylvie’s garden,” was all the answer Bruno would give at first. But, as he went on tearing up the flowers, he muttered to himself, “The nasty c’oss thing—would n’t let me go and play this morning, though I wanted to ever so much—said I must finish my lessons first—lessons, indeed! I'll vex her finely, though!”

“Oh, Bruno, you should n’t do that!” I cried. “Don't you know that’s revenge? And revenge is a wicked, cruel, dangerous thing!”

“River-edge?” said Bruno. “What a funny word! I suppose you call it cooel and dangerous because, if you went too far and tumbled in, you 'd get d’owned.

“No, not river-edge,” I explained; “rev-enge” (saying the word very slowly and distinctly). But I could n’t help thinking that Bruno’s explanation did very well for either word.

“Oh!” said Bruno, opening his eyes very wide, but without attempting to repeat the word.

“Come! try and pronounce it, Bruno!” I said, cheerfully. “Rev-enge, rev-enge.”

But Bruno only tossed his little head, and said he could n’t; that his mouth was n’t the right shape for words of that kind. And the more I laughed, the more sulky the little fellow got about it.

“Well, never mind, little man!” I said. “Shall I help you with the job you've got there?”

“Yes, please,” Bruno said, quite pacified. “Only I wish I could think of something to vex her more than this. You don’t know how hard it is to make her ang’y!”

“Now listen to me, Bruno, and I'll teach you quite a splendid kind of revenge!”

“Something that ’ll vex her finely?” Bruno asked with gleaming eyes.

“Something that ’ll vex her finely. First we ’ll get up all the weeds in her garden. See, there are a good many at this end—quite hiding the flowers.”

“But that wont vex her,” said Bruno, looking rather puzzled.

“After that,” I said, without noticing the remark, “we ’ll water the highest bed—up here. You see it ’s getting quite dry and dusty.”

Bruno looked at me inquisitively, but he said nothing this time.

“Then, after that.” I went on, “the walks want sweeping a bit; and I think you might cut down that tall nettle; it ’s so close to the garden that it ’s quite in the way”

“What are you talking about?” Bruno impatiently interrupted me. “All that wont vex her a bit!”

“Wont it?” I said, innocently. “Then, after that, suppose we put in some of these colored pebbles—just to mark the divisions between the different kinds of flowers, you know. That ’ll have a very pretty effect.”