Violet: A Fairy Story

Violet rushed to the rescue of her pets.

"O, no, no! they are mine – my own – my best friends —my toads and violets!" she screamed.

But in vain. The footman stepped on poor Toady, kicked him across and across the path, till, all bruised and bleeding, he lay still, and, Violet thought, dead, while Narcissa clapped her hands and laughed at Violet's sorrow.

"Your toads and violets!" she said; "I should think you were crazy. But I don't want to hurt your feelings, girl. Go and bring me two more large handfuls of violets, and I will forgive all your impudence and wrong stories. Why don't you go? What are you staring at?"

CHAPTER IX.

FAIRIES AGAIN

It had just come into Violet's head that this proud and imperious little mortal in the carriage must be a queen, such as her story books told about, and had a right to every body's service and every body's goods. What strengthened this belief was the fact that, fluttering about Narcissa's head, she saw (and though her face was wet with tears, she stared at it) the queerest little fairy; now, too, she saw another fairy perched on Alfred's arm as he read, and turning over the leaves of his book; while all about the carriage flew a third, the largest and most splendid of all; he trod upon the servant's heads, right over the crown of their hats; he would sit down to rest on the necks of the beautiful white horses, as they pawed the ground; he whirled round and round Narcissa, even daring to pull her own fairy's hair, while he patted Alfred's fairy on the back quite condescendingly.

This little imp was named Pride. He looked, as he flew, like a great scarlet cactus blossom, in his long rich cloak, with heavy tassels, that swept the ground, and left wherever they trailed a very fine dust of gold. In this dust the tassels were dipped continually – powdered over with it, finer than the yellow pollen you may have seen on the stamens of a lily.

The flower pollen is good for something, but not so pride's gold dust. He only scatters it because it is so expensive, and common people cannot do the same.

I have known persons who sold comfortable homes, cheerful hearts, and good consciences, all for a little gold, which they ground into this silly powder, and threw away.

I think Pride makes people a little insane; you must take care that none of his gold dust gets into your eyes.

The good thing about Pride – and there is something good about every body – was his affection for Alfred's fairy, Ambition. I cannot describe this being, he is so dazzlingly bright. He is the best and the worst fairy I know, for he is at times like each one, and often like all together.

It is ambition that makes men good as angels; and every one knows it is Ambition that makes Satan so bad. This fairy is useful; but he cannot be trusted for a moment; he may serve you faithfully through a long life, and at the end plunge you into some pitfall, just for mischief. He will whisper sweet words in your ear, and build you a glittering boat, and promise to row you down the pleasantest river to Paradise itself. Perhaps he will do all he promises; perhaps he will only land you in a madhouse or a jail.

Ambition had taken a fancy to Alfred, and never left his side. He would urge him away from his companions and sports, to work over books, – always to work and study, – and promised to make him a great and useful man.

There is one strange thing about these fairy people; beautiful and rich as they are, and free and powerful, they will follow and make their home with the poorest little child, and shelter him with their splendid wings, and light up his pathway with their gleaming crowns; but only on one condition – that the child follow wherever they lead, and is true to the fairies as they are true to him; which is but fair, you know. Who wants to give advice that is not followed?

We all, though at the time we do not know it, choose our own fairies, and, once chosen, they love us and make us love them so well that it is no easy matter to escape from them, or to avoid obeying their advice.

So, when you see any one – and grown-up men and women have fairies as well as children – who is led about by a wicked fairy, you must pity instead of blaming the sufferer; and if he offend you, you must take care that his fairy doesn't fly into your heart and frighten away your own, or make you forget, and give unkind answers back.

Be very sure no one wants to be bad; only if a spiteful little spirit perched on your shoulder, and whispered evil thoughts and angry words into your ear, don't you suppose that sometimes you would obey him and believe what he said?

Whenever you feel these wicked spirits near, call loud for Violet's fairy, Love. She will be sure to come; and they know very well they cannot live in her presence; for the light of her starry crown puts out their eyes, and the incense from Contentment's urn will take away their breath.

If Love come, Content will be sure to follow; so only keep these fairies near, and you are safe.

CHAPTER X.

THE STRANGERS

But we were talking about Violet and poor Toady, who lay on the ground all bruised and bleeding, one of his legs so broken that it dragged along after him when he tried to hop, and one of his eyes torn out and hanging by the skin; while the poor thing quivered all over with pain, and looked up at Violet with his one eye, as if he would say, "Do help me, Violet. Why didn't you keep them away?"

She lifted him into the grass, smoothing it first into something like a nest; then she poured some water from her violet cup to wash away the dust and blood, and stroked his back gently, while Toady looked up at her, and shut and opened his one eye, and tried to hop, which was his way of thanking her, you know.

When she found how stiff and sore he was, Violet burst into tears again, and wondered if the little queen in the carriage was any happier for doing all this mischief. Let us see.

Having taken care of her pet, the little girl looked to see if the carriage had gone; and though she was almost as blind as Toady, her eyes were so full of tears, she knew plainly enough by the sound that it was waiting still; for Alfred had thrown his book aside, and he and Narcissa were talking angrily.

"You're an ugly, envious thing," said Alfred. "That poor little girl had nothing on earth but those few flowers and a miserable toad; and you, who have every thing you want, could not rest till you had stolen these. If I were king, I'd send you to state's prison."

"And if you were a queen, what would you do to the girl in the carriage?" asked Narcissa's father of Violet; for the gentleman had returned from his walk, and coming quietly behind, had been watching her as she wept and watched over Toady, who seemed to be fast asleep.

"O, I would send her away to the end of the world, so I might never see her again. Do take her away," she pleaded.

"But she has done wrong; she had no more right to hurt your toad than you have to hurt my horses in the carriage there. Shall I not punish her?"

"It wouldn't do me any good," said Violet, mournfully. "Tell her she may have the flowers in welcome now. I don't care about them or any thing else if Toady must die."

"And why do you care about Toady?"

"About him?" asked Violet, shaking away the golden hair as she looked up wonderingly with her beautiful blue eyes, – "care about him? Why, did you ever see such a handsome toad? And then I have known him so long, and he hops about after me and lets me feed him; and now, now, when I come here in the morning, how lonesome I shall be, for he can't come hopping out from the grass any more, all wet with dew, and winking his round eyes, as if he'd say, 'Good morning.'"

The gentleman laughed, and then looked very sober, as he said, —

"I can't see much beauty in your pet; but I like you, little girl, for loving him so well; and here is money to pay for the harm my daughter has done."

"Why," said Violet, who had never seen any coin before, "I thought money was made to buy flour and meal with."

"So it is," replied the gentleman, "and to buy cake, and fine clothes, and artificial flowers like those in Narcissa's bonnet."

"I shouldn't want to look like her. I am not a queen," said Violet, "and I can find a great deal prettier flowers on the mountain than she wears, and prettier-looking stones than these;" and she looked at the silver carelessly; then, brightening up all at once, she asked, —

"Will they cure Toady's leg? O, if they will, I'll give you my flowers and the new cup both for them."

The gentleman shook his head.

"Then take them away. I don't want any thing."

CHAPTER XI.

THE DOCTOR DOCTORED

If Narcissa's father had looked then, he would have seen the fairy Love bending over Violet till the sunny crown she wore brightened up her face, and made it look beautiful as an angel's, and Contentment, too, pouring perfume out of her lily urn.

But the gentleman had a great deal of Pride's gold dust in his eyes, and therefore he could not see very clearly.

He did see the beautiful love Violet had for her ugly little pet, and felt how much better it was to be contented, like Violet, with so little, than to have almost every thing, like Narcissa, and be always wishing for more.

And what do you think the fairies did? They looked out of Violet's eyes, right through them, into his; and whenever she spoke they flew into his heart with the words, till the proud man, who had not wept since Narcissa's mother died, long and long ago, felt great tears gathering in his eyes; and as these fell into the grass, Contentment took care to wash away all the pride dust with her own white wings.

"The money will not cure your toad," said he; "but I can mend his leg, for I am a physician, and know all about broken bones."

So he made the servant bring a case from the carriage, and taking a sharp little knife from it, he cut away the eye, which was too much crushed to be of any use, and then bound up the leg.

But Toady kicked, and struggled, and made such a time about it, and seemed in such pain, that Violet begged him to unfasten the bandage.

"Well, you are right," he said; "the limb cannot be cured, and if I cut it off it will be out of his way, at least."

He had no sooner done this than Toady hopped right out of his grassy nest, and looking at Violet, winked so drolly with his one eye that she laughed and cried at once, and thanked the doctor over and over again.

"You needn't thank me," he said; "for it seems you knew better what would suit him than I did, little girl. I wonder who taught you."

Then Love and Contentment looked at each other and smiled; they knew very well who had taught Violet, and they knew besides that Violet was teaching the proud, rich, learned man a lesson better than he could find in all his books or buy with all his money; for the sweet smile of Contentment and the beautiful words of Love, which had come to him through the lips of the little berry girl, Violet, would be remembered for long years, and prompt him to perform kind deeds, and thus to forget his pride and his cares, and be sometimes light-hearted as a little child.

CHAPTER XII.

WHO ARE HAPPIEST

Do you know, dear children, that as soon as people have grown up they begin to wish they were young again, and had not troublesome servants to manage, and great houses to take care of, and purses full of money to spend or to save, and, worst of all, whole troops of wicked fairies? They call them habits; but fairies they are, for all that.

These spirits lead into so much mischief that there are very few men and women who don't sometimes fold their hands and say, "O, dear! if I could go back and be a little child once more!"

Ask your mother if she wouldn't give all her jewels away in exchange for as pure a heart as children have. Ask your father whether he wouldn't give all his bonds and railroad stocks if that would make him as merry and free from care as you are when you climb upon his knee to ask the question.

And if they say "No," ask them which fairy they would rather you took for a friend – Pride or Truth.

Now, here you are, children still; and if I were you, I'd enjoy being young while it lasts. I'd make friends with as many good fairies, and scare away as many bad ones, as I could find. Scare them away! I wouldn't wait to look at them or hear them talk; for some have pretty faces and sweet words, but they are dreadful cheats.

I would find out ever so many things, – and there's no end to the number there are, – ever so many things which are right, and good, and beautiful. I wouldn't look for any thing else, but would be so happy among these that other people would notice it, and look after them too; and then I would give them as many as they wanted of my treasures, and teach them where to find more; for fairy Love takes care that the more we give the more we shall have; and even if we didn't, who wants to be a miser?

Think how much God has given us! – this whole great world, all the sky over your head, and the air, and sunshine, and woods, and gardens full of flowers, and fathers and mothers to love and take care of us, and a million other things.

And what do we give God? Every thing that we give away at all we give to him just as much as if we laid it in his hand.

Don't you know that Christ called the poor and ignorant God's little children, and declared he loved them all better than your mother and father love you?

And not only this, God cares when even a bird falls to the ground with his wing broken, and is watching to see how much you are willing to do for his creature.

CHAPTER XIII.

VIOLET BERRYING

I called Violet a little berry girl, and I'll tell you why.

On the great hill above their hut, all over one side of it, were blackberry vines; and in autumn, when the berries were ripe, Violet and her mother would spend hours and hours picking them.

The sun would be scorching hot sometimes, and the thorny vines would tangle into Violet's dress and tear her arms, and mosquitos would buzz around her, until she was ready to cry or to declare she could not pick any more.

Poor Violet! You think, perhaps, that it is hard to walk to school under your parasol these sunny days; and she had, day after day, to stand out there among the vines, picking, and picking, and picking, till the two great water pails were full of berries.

But when she grew tired, Love would point to her poor old mother working so patiently, and looking so tired and warm; and when the fairy whispered, "Will you leave her here to finish the work alone?" Violet would forget in a minute her own weariness, and sing and laugh so merrily, and tell so often how fast her pail was filling up, that the mother would forget her weariness too, and only think how fortunate and how rich she was to have such a good, bright child.

When she found a place where the berries grew thick and large, Violet would call her mother to pick there; and old Mary, Reuben's wife, said that "somehow she never could find such splendid places as Violet did."

So, leaving her there, the little girl would move on; and no matter how low she found the bushes, or how thinly covered with fruit, fairy Contentment, hovering over her head, would sing, "Who cares? The fewer, the sweeter."

What with Contentment's singing, and that of Violet, and the crickets and locusts, and the bees and bobolinks, there was music enough in the blackberry pasture; and it all chimed together just like the instruments in an orchestra.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE BIRDS' HARVEST TIME

But I was telling you about Violet's birthday; so let us go back to the doorstep of her father's little hut.

Narcissa called impatiently that she was tired of waiting; so her father, bidding good by to his new acquaintance, sprang into the carriage, and it rolled lightly through the green field once more.

Violet sat watching until it was out of sight, and she could no longer see Narcissa's feathers and flowers fluttering in the wind. Some how she never thought of her afterwards, except as a whole bunch of lace and finery, with a little girl inside of it.

Then she looked around for her violets; they were gone, and in their place lay the stranger's money.

But Toady hopped in sight just then, looking so brisk, and getting about so well on his three legs, she thought her flowers were little enough to pay for so much good as he had received.

So, happy as ever, Violet took her pail and went towards the blackberry hill.

It seemed to her the berries were never so thick and large; she soon had enough, and setting them in a shady place, she went to the brook to wash her hands.

There were long, deep scratches on her arms. How they smarted when the water touched them! but Violet only thought how much worse Toady's scratches and bruises were; and then she loved to be clean, for she had watched how the birds wash in the brook a dozen times a day, and how smooth the squirrels keep their fur, and how the flowers and leaves bathe their faces every morning in dew. She didn't want the leaves and birds to be ashamed of her.

The little girl strolled on towards the wood, singing and laughing, and talking to every thing she met, but most of all to kitty, who followed after her; while whole troops of grasshoppers and little yellow butterflies flew before, and settled in advance of Violet, and when she came up, flew a little farther, as if they wanted to lead her on.

Then there were flocks and flocks of birds; the ground seemed alive with them, for it was harvest time, and they came for the ripe grain which had fallen when the farmers cut their crops, and was scattered all over the fields.

The thistle seeds were ripe too; and the birds, and butterflies, and bees seemed to love this best of all. Violet stood watching them eat, and laughed as she told puss that must be where she learned to be so greedy.

The bees went buzzing down into the very heart of the purple flowers, and took such long, deep honey draughts, and went back again and again, as if they could never have enough, and hurried away to their hives, for the sake of hurrying back for more.

The birds were not much better. They would hover an instant over the whole thistle bed, and then, selecting a good large flower, they would fly at it, fanning away with their fluttering wings till they were lost in a cloud of down, and tear out the rich, ripe seeds, swallowing them so fast it seemed as if they were eating for all winter.

Violet was never tired of watching, for she loved to see every creature happy, and knew, besides, that the birds and bees only have so good a chance to eat once in the year; and therefore, though she laughed at it, she couldn't blame them for their greediness.

There were such handsome yellow birds, with black spots and stripes over their bright breasts and wings. They buried their black and golden heads away in among the thistle down, while they clung to the stem with claws and wings, and were so busy eating that they did not see how near Violet crept to them.

Then a beautiful great butterfly, its rich brown wings spotted with blue and orange, settled upon a flower, and sipped daintily, and fluttered away again to take another sip somewhere else, and then went sailing off into the sunshine. So she skipped along after it, kitty running close behind her, until they came to a bank covered with white everlasting flowers – so many it looked a little way off like snow; and Violet, whose mother had told her that in heaven flowers did not fade, but were all everlasting, wondered if the door of heaven had not been left ajar, some day, long enough for a whole shower of seed to blow down towards this hill, and planting itself, come up in these pearl-white flowers.

Ah, Violet! the commonest seeds sprang up into heavenly flowers if they fell in your pathway.

CHAPTER XV.

WHERE THE SQUIRREL LED VIOLET

While Violet stood wondering thus, she saw a squirrel on the fence, nibbling upon a nut. As soon as she stirred, he darted along a rail or two, and then, waiting till she came up with him, went nibbling again.

"You needn't feel so grand with your spry legs. I guess I can run as well as you," said Violet.

The squirrel tucked the nut under one arm, and with a whisk of his bushy tail, darted like lightning along the rails, leaving Violet so far behind she thought he had gone into the wood; but when she had reached far enough herself, there he sat, quietly nibbling at his nut again, and soon as he saw her, whisked up into a tree, and from among the high boughs called, "Cheep, cheep, chip! Which beat, little girl?"

Violet could not see him, he went so fast and far; and as she looked up among the leafy boughs, he dropped the nut right into her face, and ran round and round the limb, and called "Cheep, cheep, chip!" again, as if he were laughing at her.

Violet laughed too, and threw the nut back at him, looking first to see how clean he had eaten out the meat.

Away darted squirrel, without waiting to chip this time, and Violet called, as he ran, —

"It's all very fine to whisk along so fast, mister; but I should like to know how much good your travelling does. I know you can't see a thing, any more than they can in the rail cars I've heard about. You're welcome to your legs so long as you leave the brook, and the flowers, and birds for puss and me."

But he only answered by dropping another nut from directly over her head, and she followed him into the wood – the beautiful, cool, still wood. Violet left off singing as she entered it; for she loved to hear the rustle of the ripe leaves, and to watch the tiny fibres falling lightly from the pines, and hear the nuts and acorns rattle down, and to see the spider webs and insects glitter wherever a gleam of sunshine had stolen through the boughs.

Her hands were full of flowers, which she had gathered on the way; for she did not mean her new cup should be empty when the good parents came home.

So she had picked such a splendid bunch! – bright red cardinal flowers from the swamp; and along by the brook side, where it was sunniest, she found beautiful blue fringed gentians; and farther on branches of golden rod, that looked like little elm trees changed to gold; and on farther still, by the edge of the wood, where, as they waved, they seemed beckoning her, she found plenty of asters, white as snow, with little yellow eyes twinkling out among the petals, or else rich purple with deep gold inside; and she had some of the everlasting flowers too, like bunches of pure pearls.

Violet crept under the deep shade of the boughs, where the brook was gurgling over its mossy stones, and laid the stems of her flowers there to keep them fresh, making a wall of pebbles around them, so that the water, which tripped along so fast, should not carry them away.

For once, when she forgot to do this, she had no sooner placed her flowers in the brook than off they sailed down stream, and scattered so fast and far she couldn't think of finding them all again.

Violet laughed when she remembered that day, and how the brook, full of its mischief, had run away with her treasures, and scattered them any and every where along its banks, setting some upright, as if they were growing again, and wedging some under the stones, and tangling some under the fence, and floating some down the hill and through the sunny field, so fast they seemed chasing the little fish that made their home in the brook.

Even away down by Reuben's house a few had strayed, and reached home so much before Violet that she began to think the waves had, after all, as spry feet as her own.

CHAPTER XVI.

ALONE IN THE WOOD

Her flowers safe in the water, the little girl seated herself on a stone that seemed made purposely for her, it was cushioned so softly with moss; and overhead the boughs of the great trees bent towards her, and rustled and waved like so many fans, and shut her in so closely from the rest of the wood that you might have passed close by, and never guessed she was there.