ELLEN'S TRIP TO FAIRYLAND

New Zealand Tablet, 16 March 1911, Page 501

ELLEN'S TRIP TO FAIRYLAND

Johnnie was Ellen's brother, and he had read to her from a big red book many things about fairyland, but he always spoiled it by explaining that what the book said was not true, and that really there is no fairyland except as people imagine one and see it in their minds.' Ellen did not contradict, because Johnnie was a boy and older, but she felt pretty sure that he might be mistaken. One day she found out that he was mistaken when he said she could never go to fairyland. That day she sat on the front steps in the sun alone with Rag Polly. The heat made Rag Polly so sleepy that she slid down in a heap, but Ellen stayed wide awake and watched the yellow sunshine creeping across the uneven pavement. Then she heard the fairy music. She knew it was fairy music, because it was so beautiful, and it seemed to be calling and coaxing her just as the book said it would. The music called her, and she followed it away from the tenement steps and on out of the quiet alley into the wider, busier streets, and on and on until she had to sit on the curbstone to rest. Then she did not hear the fairy music any more; the pounding of the horses' feet, the jangling of the street cars, the noise of the people passing drowned the music. Crowds of people kept going past, but among them all Ellen did not see one person from Little Bean street, where she knew and smiled at almost everybody. .'I want Rag Polly!' the little girl sobbed to herself in the helpless loneliness that had been felt by many an older wanderer in the busy city. A lady passing from a shop to her carriage brushed against the doleful little figure on the curb. Feeling the soft drapery against her cheek, Ellen reached :ip and dried her tears just as she had often wiped away her woe against her mother's scanty skirts. The dirty damp little face left its imprint upon an exquisite costume of dove-colored broadcloth, but the lady did not notice. She was gazing in aniEJiment at the bare-footed little girl in the t»T»i, p'nk dress, at the big, tearful brown eyes,' the shining curls, the sweet baby face. " " ' Are you lost, little one ?' Ellen recognised fairy music, the voice was so soft and kind. She looked up with a glad smile. 'Why, you are the Beautiful Princess!' she cried. 'I am so glad you have found me at last.' The Beautiful Princess simply, stared, and Ellen remembered her manners. She stood up and made a little bow. 'lf you please, I am ready to go with you to Fairyland,' she said.

The Beautiful Princess turned to some one and said : .‘Place the child in the carriage, Mellons, and tell James to drive home.’

In the carnage —of course it was a golden chariot— Ellen asked the Beautiful Princess how long it took to go to Fairyland. ". ' Some fly there swift as thought, and others never reach the outskirts in a lifetime,' the Beautiful Princess replied. "What is it like there?' Ellen asked wistfully. The Beautiful Princess looked into the little girl's shining eyes and answered slowly: ' In Fairyland there is a tall, radiant temple with walls of crystal that flash in the sun; it is the Temple of Truth, and only children and some whom the world calls foolish ever enter. There is a shining stairway of beautiful thoughts reaching up to the sky. There is a grove where the trees murmur and the birds sing of love, and the flowers nod. and whisper '

‘I know! • And the trees are green and the flowers are red and the sky is blue,” ’ crooned the little girl, quoting the red book. When the carriage stopped Ellen was led up a flight of steps into a cool, green, quiet place that was the entrance to Fairyland. She followed the Beautiful Princess through many lovely places, and up a shining stairs and down a dim, mysterious passage to a grotto—it must have been a grotto ! The place was filled with a wondrous pink light, and everything was bright and sparkling, like frost when the. sun shines, and up in the roof of the grotto cunnmg naked fairy babes were soaring with outspread wings. Ellen nodded approval. ‘lt is very much like ,the book said, she commented • 1 There was a little pool _of clear water in • the grotto, with three marble steps leading down into it. The Beautiful Princess suggested that Ellen might like to get'into the water and splash and play, and Ellen thought she might. But the book says that sometimes one is turned into a big, shiny fish or a frog or a swan if one goes into the fairies bath,’ she demurred. The Beautiful Princess and a fairy who wore a - white apron and the cutest little white cap, solemnly promised that nothing of the sort should happen in this case, and Ellen ventured into the bath. After the little girl had been dressed again— in her own pink dress, but in fairy clothes, all white and fluffy with cobwebby —the Beautiful Princess asked it she would like to eat some luncheon. Ellen truthfully and politely answered, ‘ Yes, ma’am.’ . It was a most beautiful table, with silver that glittered and glass that flashed and big bowls of red roses reflected in miniature lakes. In one particular it did not come up to the standard of the red book. .. ‘ 1 thought fairies had dishes of gold,’ Ellen remarked critically. The Princess smiled and spoke to a tall creature in a red plush coat. Immediately a large gold plate was placed in front of the little girl.' Well pleased, indeed Ellen then proceeded to eat more good things than she could remember afterward. As they left the table Ellen was delighted to see approaching her a charming little elf, all long golden ringlets and white skirts and white silk stockings and little white kid slippers with pink rosettes. Ellen ran forward with outstretched arms, but instead of kissing the sweet creature as she intended she bumped her. own nose i against a mirror so severely that she almost cried—only , she could not cry in Fairyland. V- Her mistake was so funny that she really had to laugh, and the Princess had to laugh, too. : . ‘What would you like to do next?’ the Beautiful Princess asked. ‘ If you please, I should like to see the Fairy Prince ’ Ellen answered. . ’ The Princess sighed, and said that the Fairy Prince was not at home, but away off on the other side of the ocean. She took a locket from her neck, and the little girl stood on tiptoe to look at a picture of the Prince. Ellen thought a Fairy Prince should have yellow waving locks, blue eyes, pink cheeks, a green velvet coat, and a hat with a feather. The picture in the locket was not at all like that. Ellen did not wish to be impolite, but she could not keep from shaking her head and saying ‘No-oi’ as she looked. J b ‘ The Beautiful Princess did not seem to mind. She laughed a little laugh and raised the locket to her lips tenderly 16 picture of tlle lean > tern-jawed Prince very . Ellen soon forgot her disappointment about the Fairy mince, for the next place they entered was so enchanting a fe oSt + t 0k D a ay 18 i r breath - , It was the rose bower of the Beautiful Princess herself, and there were red roses and pin roses and white roses and yellow roses blooming everywhere, and the most beautiful roses of all on vines climbing overhead. There were birds singing and fountains making green a mSs rmUrS tricklin S in little silver streams over of At first Ellen was too pleased to speak. In the moment on the Tteps C C lgnt 816 rem embered the doll left in a heap 1 flf only Rag Polly could see it!’ she murmured when she found her voice. iPof l iru aS in tbi f wonderful place, in the thick greenery, that Ellen caught sight of the fairies, turned to stone, .hey stood there, the poor things, all ready o move when the word should be spoken. The Beautiful Princess called them statues. , Ellen did not know what that meant, but the red book had told her about the fairies that were turned to stone. ‘ A wicked ogre said a spell over them to last a hundred tear' &1K a <aay ’ ske reca fl ed as she wiped away a pitying ‘ When the Fairy Prince comes home you will tell him to kiss them all and break the spell, will you not, Beautiful Princess? 1 she asked. The Princess said she would speak to the Prince about it. a . When the little girl began, to feel tired, the Beautiful Puncess offered to rock her to sleep. ‘No thank you, ma’am,’ said Ellen; ‘I guess von would better take me home now. My mother will'be through working and she will want to sing to me and put ’ me to bed for my nap,’ b iVWU I JUI

So'they got into the carriage again—still a golden chariot—and though'she did not intend to do so, the little girl leaned against the Beautiful Princess and went to sleep. Meanwhile Ellen had been missed in Little, Bean street. The child's mother asked her neighbors in the tenement if they had seen anything of her Ellen. Then, finding Rag Polly alone on the steps, the mother grew frightened and ran all through the house and up and down the street calling and looking everywhere. The policeman on the corner helped her in her search and other policemen were notified to be on the lookout for the lost child. At last Ellen's mother herself went to the .police station to ask if a barefooted, bareheaded, yellow-haired girl in a pink dress had been found. The sergeant said that a lady in a carriage had turned over to the authorities a little girl found wandering alone on C—— street. The child was asleep in the inner office on the sergeant's desk. Ellen's mother looked in, trembling with hope and fear. When she caught sight of the lace-trimmed skirts, the white silk stockings, and the pink rosettes, she hurried away, blinded by tears. 'No, no!' she said, 'my little Ellen was not dressed like that.' ' But as she went on searching up and down, the streets, she could not keep from thinking about that little figure in white on the sergeant's desk. Those fat little legs stuck out exactly like Ellen's legs. So she went back to the police station and Johnnie went with her. This time they went right up to the desk, ; and when they saw the' yellow curls spread out over a pile of papers not all the' white slippers with pink rosettes in the world could fool N them.' So Ellen, who had bee.n to Fairyland, and who had fallen asleep in the chariot of the. Beautiful Princess, awoke, thankful and glad, in the arms of her own dear mother, with her brother Johnnie fairly smothering her with hugs and kisses.