Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/118

 rule among us that, wherever children go, fairies must go too.

It was a sad and painful thing to leave that dear land where we were honored and believed in, but we are not of the kind who shrink from the call of duty. I was among the earliest volunteers. Ah! if I had known,' said the fairy, shaking his head, 'had guessed, half what lay before us, I should never have "signified in the usual manner"—by raising my right wing—a readiness to go. But I was young in those days,—young and ardent; and my soul was full of courage and adventure.

Of the voyage I will not trust myself to speak. None of the remedies—blue-pill, quassia, chloroform, ice on the spine, mustard on the stomach, or keeping-your-eye-immovably-on-a-fixed-object—had been invented, and we suffered agonies. When the ship touched Plymouth Rock, I could hardly drag myself ashore.