Then the wee boy smiled, and liked the little story.  His mother took him up in her arms, and they went out to supper and left the blackberry-bush nodding up and down in the wind; and there it is nodding yet.

THE FAIRIES[1]

[1] By William Allingham.

 Up the airy mountain,
   Down the rushy glen,
 We daren’t go a-hunting
   For fear of little men. 
 Wee folk, good folk,
   Trooping all together;
 Green jacket, red cap,
   And white owl’s feather!

 Down along the rocky shore
   Some make their home—­
 They live on crispy pancakes
   Of yellow tide-foam;
 Some in the reeds
   Of the black mountain-lake,
 With frogs for their watch-dogs,
   All night awake.

 High on the hilltop
   The old King sits;
 He is now so old and gray,
   He’s nigh lost his wits. 
 With a bridge of white mist
   Columbkill he crosses,
 On his stately journeys
   From Slieveleague to Rosses;
 Or going up with music
   On cold starry nights,
 To sup with the Queen
   Of the gay Northern Lights.

 They stole little Bridget
   For seven years long;
 When she came down again
   Her friends were all gone. 
 They took her lightly back,
   Between the night and morrow;
 They thought that she was fast
      asleep,
   But she was dead with sorrow. 
 They have kept her ever since
   Deep within the lake,
 On a bed of flag-leaves,
   Watching till she wake.

 By the craggy hillside,
   Through the mosses bare,
 They have planted thorn-trees,
   For pleasure here and there. 
 Is any man so daring
   As dig them up in spite,
 He shall find their sharpest thorns
   In his bed at night.

 Up the airy mountain,
   Down the rushy glen,
 We daren’t go a-hunting
   For fear of little men. 
 Wee folk, good folk,
   Trooping all together;
 Green jacket, red cap,
   And white owl’s feather!

THE ADVENTURES OF THE LITTLE FIELD MOUSE

Once upon a time, there was a little brown Field Mouse; and one day he was out in the fields to see what he could see.  He was running along in the grass, poking his nose into everything and looking with his two eyes all about, when he saw a smooth, shiny acorn, lying in the grass.  It was such a fine shiny little acorn that he thought he would take it home with him; so he put out his paw to touch it, but the little acorn rolled away from him.  He ran after it, but it kept rolling on, just ahead of him, till it came to a place where a big oak-tree had its roots spread all over the ground.  Then it rolled under a big round root.

Little Mr. Field Mouse ran to the root and poked his nose under after the acorn, and there he saw a small round hole in the ground.  He slipped through and saw some stairs going down into the earth.  The acorn was rolling down, with a soft tapping sound, ahead of him, so down he went too.  Down, down, down, rolled the acorn, and down, down, down, went the Field Mouse, until suddenly he saw a tiny door at the foot of the stairs.