Chapter VIII: Alicy’s Adventure

One summer morning Alicy got up with a frown on her face, and it didn’t come off even at a very nice breakfast, so mamma suggested that she take a walk about the big back garden and see if she could find a smile to put on.

She walked down the gravel path and around the shrubbery out of sight of the house, where there was nothing but grass and trees and some tall, gay dahlias. It was quite like being far away, and she often came here to play “lost child,” a play where you built a house of branches and leaves and eat lunch from flat stones, pretending that you are a little girl lost in the jungles.

Looking up at the clear blue of the sky and walking amid the whispering greenness of the leaves, you would have thought that Alicy should have a lovely smile right there; but the dark old pout lay on her little face like a veil and only lifted a little as she spied a nice pink box tied neatly with a silver cord, lying on a pile of rock. Alicy opened it eagerly and piff-puff, out popped three lovely little fairies all pink and blue and gold, and flit, flirt, off they flew singing like finches, happy to be free.

“O,” cried the surprised little girl and “O! O! O!” growled a deep cross voice beside her.

“O you horrid girl, you have let out my flower fairies, and now there is no one to make me a crown for my wedding. I have a good mind to pinch you black and blue.”

“O, O-wee.” This time it was Alicy, for what she had thought was a pile of brown boulders was a little hard-faced rock woman with buttons made of shining pebbles and grass for hair. Poor Alicy jumped and rubbed a red spot on her knee where the rock woman had pinched her.

“Now,” said the rock woman, “you will certainly have to go and hunt them for me. You take this pink pebble in your mouth and go among the grass people and maybe they can help you find my fairies again. Hurry on!” and she gave poor Alicy such a kick that she flew into a clump of blue-grass, and found herself grown so small that the grass all about her looked like tall forest trees; for the pink pebble had made her as small as an ant.

“Now,” said Alicy, “I have four things to hunt for instead of one. A smile, and three flower fairies. Poor Bo-peep, I know how she felt out hunting for those tiresome sheep; though a smile and three fairies haven’t three tails to bring behind them. Ha! Ha!” And that thought made her laugh aloud; and right in the path Alicy found a little golden smile which she tried on and, looking in a dewdrop on a nearby leaf, she found that it fitted exactly and was immensely becoming.

Cheered up by her good fortune she went on and met a file of ant soldiers all in black, shiny uniforms marching out to bring in the ant cows, which are little green aphids that they pasture on the under side of oak leaves. Their captain was very polite, as are all grass people, and in answer to her questions about the possible whereabouts of the flower fairies he told her that if she would catch a young grasshopper and ride him she would reach the fairy dell where they had no doubt gone.

After they had all saluted and marched off down the road, Alicy sat down in the cool shade and taking some grass plaited a little halter and started out to catch one of the grasshopper colts frisking about in the pasture; but a big fat caterpillar came up and very fiercely demanded, “What are you doing with my horses?”

“Why, I didn’t know they belonged to anybody,” faltered Alicy, “I just wanted one to ride to the fairy dell. I would have turned it loose there.” My, how the caterpillar worked all of his legs, he was so mad!

“It’s a good thing for you that you are not a boy,” growled he. “I hope that you didn’t really mean to steal a horse, but I tell you the Anti Horse Thief Association will get you if you are up to such tricks long. Now beat it!”

Frightened at his angry manner and the long name he called her with such an ugly word as thief in it, Alicy made up her mind that he meant by “beat it” that she must go away, and she took to her heels like a good one; until finally quite out of breath, she sat down and cried a little.

Then she heard a squeak, squeak under her and found that she was almost sitting upon a funny, green-eyed, field-mouse, who wagged her whiskers in a friendly way and said, “I am Milly Mouse. Who are you?” After hearing Alicy’s story, she rubbed her sleek head with her little claw awhile, thoughtfully, and then said, “I think I can help you a bit; look in the path before you, right there! Go in there;” and with a swish of her tail, she whisked out of sight into a hole in the ground. Alicy looked all around and finally saw a large orange-colored ball with a little window in one side, like the candy eggs you get at Easter. It was too large to pick up so she knelt down and looked in through the glass. Inside she saw a lovely landscape. Around a tiny lake grew red and white roses, all bright with sunshine; a fairy prince in green and gold armor and glistening filmy wings parted the roses and came down to the lake. As she looked he blew a call on his golden trumpet and six white swans came sailing up to the bank where a pretty shell-like boat rocked gently. He fastened this to the swans with a silken ribbon, and then he looked straight through the little window at Alicy and cried, “All aboard to the fairy dell!”

Alicy saw that what she thought was a window was really a door, and she turned a knob, opened the door, and walking down to the lakeside was in the boat before you could say Jack Robinson. And there she sat beside the fairy prince while the swans pulled the boat over the clear, lovely water as they swam gently away.

In thinking of it afterwards, Alicy couldn’t remember a thing the fairy prince said, but no doubt it was because she was so taken up in gazing at the lovely, sheeny wings and the darling little gold crown on his head. The scent of the roses on its banks were wafted over the little lake by a cool breeze, and the wings and feet of the swans made a soft paddling in the water that soon made Alicy sleepy, and despite her determination to look at the fairy once more to see whether his wings were feathers or just little moving sparkles of light, her eyes closed tightly and when she opened them again, it was dark and she could see nothing save one big star looking down at her between the branches of a great oak-tree.

She smelled violets so strongly that it reminded her of the time, when she was very little, that she poured all of mamma’s best perfume over her kitty. They still call that cat “Vi,” although her name was really “Tegums.” Turning over on the soft moist pillow under her cheek she found that she was lying on a bed of white violets and that all about her in the trees and on the grass tiny lights were beginning to twinkle and a faint far-away chorus of tiny voices was singing, hardly louder than a cricket’s chirp:

“See, oh, see,
On bush and tree,
What lamps are shining!
Ting, ting, ting!

“They are eyes,
Of fireflies,
To light our wedding,
Ting, ting, ting!”

The singing was all mixed up with a lovely little chime of silver bells and Alicy sat up in delight. Surely this must be the fairy dell she had been seeking. She was lying in a tiny valley and about her rose the violet covered banks. And now that she was fully awake, she could see hundreds of little fairy houses all lighted up, and many delicate creatures, no higher than your thumb, coming down among the violets, carrying gold and silver lanterns, which were really little cages with fireflies shut inside, giving out a clear green light.

High above all this, on a glittering throne, sat a lovely being larger and more beautiful than even the fairies themselves, and this was the great Titania, their queen. Her eyes were soft and sweet like mother’s eyes, and her smile so kind that Alicy was not afraid, but ran and knelt before her throne. Titania spoke in a soft voice, like waterfalls going over boulders, “And what does the earth-child ask of the fairies?”

Then Alicy told of her travels in search of the truant fays, and as she finished, Titania waved her hand and called, “Violet, Anemone, Fern,” and three fairies, violet, pink, and green clad came floating up the valley to where the queen sat. “Now,” said Titania, “you must give them each a gift for a wedding portion and they will return with you to make Dame Bolder’s crown.”

So Alicy took her little scissors from her pocket and cut off a golden curl. “Good,” cried the queen, “that will make Violet a capital mattress.” Alicy took out her little silver thimble next, and Fern, who was a knight with a long green plume in his hat cried, “Splendid! Now I will have a cuirass that no beetle can pierce.” Alicy then took off her little gold ring with the turquoise buckle and Anemone was delighted to own so elegant a belt.

Then they all kissed Alicy and laughed and danced about her, the lovely queen smiling down on them with her starry eyes, and all of the little fairy houses sparkled in the light, and the fairy folk, with the firefly lanterns, came up and joined in the dance till Alicy became dizzy with the music and the whirl and flash of light in her eyes.

And then it was the flash of sunshine in her own garden and mother dear, instead of Titania, leaning over her laughing.

“Why, sweetheart, you found your smile in slumberland.”

“No, mother, I found it in the fairy dell. Oh, where are the flower fairies to make Dame Bolder’s wedding crown?” but mother only said, “You have been dreaming, dear, come in to luncheon;” but Alicy knew better, though it is of no use to talk to grown-ups, as you know. So she quietly followed her mother into the house; but mark this,--the next day she found her ring and thimble on the bolder pile, and growing there were two lovely flowers, anemone and violet and the green fronds of a feathery fern. So she knew that the fairies had made Madam Bolder’s wedding crown as Titania had promised.