The little boy liked to copy these pictures; but as he was not fond of work, he often threw his drawings away before they were half done.  He said that he wished that some good fairy would finish them for him.

“Child,” said his mother, “I don’t believe that there are any fairies.  I never saw one, and your father never saw one.  Mind your books, my child, and never mind the fairies.”

“Very well, mother,” said the boy.

“It makes me sad to see you stand looking at the pictures,” said his mother another day, as she laid her hand on his curly head.  “Why, child, pictures can’t feed a body, pictures can’t clothe a body, and a log of wood is far better to burn and warm a body.”

“All that is quite true, mother,” said the boy.

“Then why do you keep looking at them, child?” but the boy could only say, “I don’t know, mother.”

“You don’t know!  Nor I, neither!  Why, child, you look at the dumb things as if you loved them!  Put on your cap and run out to play.”

So the boy wandered off into the forest till he came to the brink of a little sheet of water.  It was too small to be called a lake; but it was deep and clear, and was overhung with tall trees.  It was evening, and the sun was getting low.  The boy stood still beside the water and thought how beautiful it was to see the sun, red and glorious, between the black trunks of the pine trees.  Then he looked up at the great blue sky and thought how beautiful it was to see the little clouds folding over one another like a belt of rose-colored waves.  Then he looked at the lake and saw the clouds and the sky and the trees all reflected there, down among the lilies.

And he wished that he were a painter, for he said to himself, “I am sure there are no trees in the world with such beautiful leaves as these pines.  I am sure there are no clouds in the world so lovely as these.  I know this is the prettiest little lake in the world, and if I could paint it, every one else would know it, too.”

But he had nothing to paint with.  So he picked a lily and sat down with it in his hand and tried very hard to make a correct drawing of it.  But he could not make a very good picture.  At last he threw down his drawing and said to the lily: 

“You are too beautiful to draw with a pencil.  How I wish I were a painter!”

As he said these words he felt the flower move.  He looked, and the cluster of stamens at the bottom of the lily-cup glittered like a crown of gold.  The dewdrops which hung upon the stamens changed to diamonds before his eyes.  The white petals flowed together, and the next moment a beautiful little fairy stood on his hand.  She was no taller than the lily from which she came, and she was dressed in a robe of the purest white.

“Child, are you happy?” she asked.

“No,” said the boy in a low voice, “because I want to paint and I cannot.”

“How do you know that you cannot?” asked the fairy.