Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/122

 Book"! Or did we spread a tiny table like this, with strawberries ranged in row, and leave it in the path where little travellers were wont to pass, no one heeded it. "Only an old toadstool!" they would cry, and kick it aside with their copper-toed boots. Ah! it was enough to break a fairy's heart!

When we lit our tapers, and went out in procession in the evening, we were called fireflies! Our pretty songs, as we rocked in the boughs, were ascribed to the wind; and "Hadn't baby better have on something warmer, dear?" Our fairy favors were treated with scorn. Once I dropped a tester into a little girl's shoe, as she paddled in the brook. Was she pleased? Not at all!! "Here's an ugly yellow leaf in my boot," she said; and she plucked it out and threw it away.

What was left for us to do, our occupation gone? Nothing! We resigned ourselves to the inevitable. One by one we deserted the