Then, then, my dears, came hard times for Elsa!  There were so many things to be done in the house, and she did not know how to do any of them!  And because she had never worked at all it made her very tired even to try; she was tired before the morning was over, every day.  The maid would come and say, “How shall I do this?” or “How shall I do that?” And Elsa would have to say, “I don’t know.”  Then the maid would pretend that she did not know, either; and when she saw her mistress sitting about doing nothing, she, too, sat about, idle.

Elsa’s husband had a hard time of it; he did not have good things to eat, and they were not ready at the right time, and the house looked all in a clutter.  It made him sad, and that made Elsa sad, for she wanted to do everything just right.

At last, one day, Elsa’s husband went away quite cross; he said to her, as he went out the door, “It is no wonder that the house looks so, when you sit all day with your hands in your lap!”

Little Elsa cried bitterly when he was gone, for she did not want to make her husband unhappy and cross, and she wanted the house to look nice.  “Oh, dear,” she sobbed, “I wish I could do things right!  I wish I could work!  I wish—­I wish I had ten good fairies to work for me!  Then I could keep the house!”

As she said the words, a great gray man stood before her; he was wrapped in a strange gray cloak that covered him from head to foot; and he smiled at Elsa.  “What is the matter, dear?” he said.  “Why do you cry?”

“Oh, I am crying because I do not know how to keep the house,” said Elsa.  “I cannot make bread, I cannot sweep, I cannot sew a seam; when I was a little girl I never learned to work, and now I cannot do anything right.  I wish I had ten good fairies to help me!”

“You shall have them, dear,” said the gray man, and he shook his strange gray cloak.  Pouf!  Out hopped ten tiny fairies, no bigger than that!

“These shall be your servants, Elsa,” said the gray man; “they are faithful and clever, and they will do everything you want them to, just right.  But the neighbors might stare and ask questions if they saw these little chaps running about your house, so I will hide them away for you.  Give me your little useless hands.”

Wondering, Elsa stretched out her pretty, little, white hands.

“Now stretch out your little useless fingers, dear!”

Elsa stretched out her pretty pink fingers.

The gray man touched each one of the ten little fingers, and as he touched them he said their names:  “Little Thumb; Fore-finger; Thimble-finger; Ring-finger; Little Finger; Little Thumb; Forefinger; Thimble-finger; Ring-finger; Little Finger!” And as he named the fingers, one after another, the tiny fairies bowed their tiny heads; there was a fairy for every name.

“Hop! hide yourselves away!” said the gray man.

Hop, hop!  The fairies sprang to Elsa’s knee, then to the palms of her hands, and then-whisk! they were all hidden away in her little pink fingers, a fairy in every finger!  And the gray man was gone.