“Hello, Nimble Jim!  How are your melons?”

Jim would have been very angry at such a question could he have seen anybody to be angry with; but, though he looked and looked with all his eyes, not a soul could he see.

“Hello, Nimble Jim!  How are your melons?  Ha, ha, ha!  Melons! melons!  Ha, ha, ha!” And the sweet little voice sang, in a merry, mocking strain: 

     “Nice sweet melons! 
      Round ripe melons! 
  Nimble Jim likes them, I know. 
      Mean sour melons,
      Crooked green melons,
  Nimble Jim only can grow!

Ha, ha, ha!  How are your melons, Nimble Jim?”

[Illustration:  The Elfin Queen]

“Who are you?  What are you?  Where are you?” cried Jim, hardly knowing whether to be angry, amused, or frightened.

“You ask a good many questions at once, don’t you?” said the silvery voice. “Who am I? What am I? Where am I?  Eh!  I’m the Queen of the Elfs,” said her tiny majesty, “and if you look sharply you’ll see where I am.”

Just then a moonbeam streaming through the trees overhead fell across his path, and, dancing up and down on it, he saw the tiny elfin queen,—­a lovely little creature with long, bright, wavy hair, and glittering garments fluttering in the breeze, wings like a butterfly, a mischievous smile on her face, and in her hand a wee wand tipped with a star.  But the brightest thing about her was the twinkle that played hide-and-seek in her eye.

Nimble Jim took off his hat and made a low bow.

“Now, what is all this about?—­and why are you neglecting your work, sir?” demanded she, sternly.

Jim trembled beneath her royal gaze, little as she was, and replied humbly: 

“May it please your majesty, I wish I’d some melon-seeds that’d grow like magic.  I am dead tired of being nothin’ but a cobbler.  I want to be a melon-merchant, and raise the finest, largest melons ever seen,—­supply the whole kingdom with them, and grow to be as rich as the king himself.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” she answered, laughing her merry little laugh, and capering up and down the moonbeam.  “Oh! quite a modest youth!  Well, I’ll make a bargain with you; and if you will do something for me, you shall have your wish,” said the queen.

Nimble Jim was about to pour out his gratitude, when she interrupted him, saying:  “Now, Nimble Jim, listen to me.  Your wish is a foolish one, and I warn you that if you gain it you will be sorry.  Why will you not be content as you are?”

“Your majesty,” replied the obstinate youth.  “I cannot be content as I am.”

“Well, since you insist on having your own way, we’ll make our bargain.  Here,”—­and, sitting down on the moonbeam, she pulled off a shoe,—­“here, sir, I want you to mend my shoe.  I tripped just now on a rough place in this moonbeam.  Mend the rip; show me you are a good cobbler, and I promise that you shall have your wish.”